The Joe Rogan Experience - #1727 - Rob Kearney

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

Rob Kearney is the world's first openly gay professional strongman. He's also the co-author of the children's book "Strong," along with writer Eric Rosswood, and illustrator Nidhi Chanani.

the Joe Rogan experience to be fair I have a pretty terrible golf swing though I don't have much of a backswing yeah I hit the ground most I've done that top golf place, but I just whack the ground. It's not good. I'm scared of golf. That's why when I see Jamie like full on, completely obsessed six months in, I'm like, that's what I thought. That's what happens to people. I don't want that shit.

I don't have any time. And it's deceivingly expensive. Is it really? Well, yeah. Like every time you go out, it's, you know, depending on the course you play it's in a routine like 80 and 150 bucks every time you go play And if you suck like I do you're losing you know a dozen golf balls A lot of people gamble as well true, so if you suck and dream bull, and then you drink yeah Yeah, but well the thing that freaks me out is the the cost of time

Yeah, cuz it's I mean four hours at least at least jamie what do you do like what's a normal day suck i found out that's why it takes so long what's your longest day the longest is over it's five and a half hours i think that's just the round that doesn't include the you know half an hour to hour warm-up and oh see i don't warm up i use the first like six holes as a warm-up yeah i've started i kind of like it's a waste of time if I don't warm up. I use the first like six holes as a warm up. I've started, I kind of like, it's a waste of time if you can't warm up. But I've also played as fast as an hour and 20 minutes. How does one warm up for golf? It's like a driving range.

It kind of, it depends on what you need to do, but you almost want to have to putt. You need to get a couple putts in because that's completely different than driving and hitting hard. Right. And that's half of your shots are going to be putting. More than half for me. Most people fuck up, so. You need a couple chips, and then you've got to get your body warm. Literally, the pros go warm up for an hour and a half to two to three hours swinging, doing lots of stuff.

That makes sense athletically, because if you're going to train jiu-jitsu or something like that, you have to warm up. Do you warm up before you lift? Oh, yeah. By the way, you're looking extra swole, son. Thanks, man. I know. I was talking to my friends. They're like, oh, you look huge. I'm By the way, you're looking extra swole, son. Thanks, man. I know. I was talking to my friends. They're like, oh, you look huge. I'm like, no, I'm actually less fat. That's what it is.

Oh, everything pops out more. You recovered from surgery, huh? What did you have done? Dude, I've had a shit year. So just over a year ago, I ruptured my tricep on my left arm. Was attempting the Logpress world record.

What is the world record? The show attempting the log press world record. And what is the world record? So the show was to attempt the world record. I failed at 485 pounds, which would have been a new American record. That's when my tricep decided to, you know, crap out. So what did it do? Like separate from the bone? Oh, no. Like my tendon exploded.

So typically like when a tendon tears, it's kind of like a piece of paper, throw a couple of stitches in it and then, you know, anchor it into the bone. The doctor, first thing he said when I woke up was, so when I opened up your arm, I literally had to take a step back and rethink everything I was going to do because it was that much worse. But didn't you have an MRI to go by? Yeah, but like, so the MRI, it showed that it was torn, but he didn't know to like what extent. And when he got in there, he realized it literally,

he said it looked like a firecracker had gone off in my tendon. So it took 14 sutures to put my tendon back together into something he could even attach to my elbow. And then another four anchors into my elbow that he had to drill in. And what was the recovery like? I mean, I still can't straighten my arm out all the way.

Oh, really? And I got like this really cute dimple now. Oh, wow. That's gnarly. Nasty scar. Are you going to put like a tattoo on it and make it like a snake or something? That's what I'm thinking, yeah. I mean, I feel like a snake is too cliche. Maybe a fuse.

That could be it. For your forearm. A bomb ass forearm. My husband goes, you should make it a sperm. I was like, oh, we're not. With his name attached to it? It's like, we could just not do that. There's no need.

How many people have fucking sperm tattooed on their body? That might be the least tattooed thing ever. It might be. I mean, I'm gay, and I don't even want a sperm tattooed on my body. It's probably a girl, like sad girls. the ones that definitely have daddy issues oh yeah yeah you know the sublime sun yeah those are sperm oh yeah so like maybe a lot of people have sperm on their body and they might not even know it why does sublime sun have i have listened to the artist to describe it it's like sperm attacking an egg kind of is what the idea is.

So it's not a sun at all. Yeah. Correctly, yeah. It's a mushroom in the middle. Yeah. Oh, but a skull. There's a lot going on. That's a very busy picture.

There is. That's very busy. Look, it's got Satan in there. I never looked at the fucking sublime thing. There's a pocket knife in there. Got the fish skeleton. Last fun story. The singer bought it for $150, and it's become the most recognizable band merch thing.

No, it's not. The Rolling Stones is the most recognizable. I know, well, over time, overall, but they sold more merch than Nirvana last year. Like, they were number one. Really? Yeah, yeah. Damn. At least for 2020.

But they have a new lead singer now, right? That's different. It's almost like a cover band. Really? Yeah. So is it a Sublime cover band with Sublime as the band? Yes. How does that work?

That's confusing. Yes. But ACDC did that. They had an original lead singer, and then they swapped out. It has to do with the rights of the band and some other things. Oh. Because before that even happened, there was a cover band literally touring and made more money than the band sublime had ever made touring just as a cover band so I think they sort of realized the

business that make you feel well it's we have a thing for romantic stories where like someone dies doing heroin that's for whatever reason that's a romantic one yeah you know I can see that yeah right like bands that like he was thinking about how many fucking genius band people Jim Morrison Janis Joplin Hendrix yep well Kurt Cobain suicide but the heroin probably had a part in that yeah Part in that, yeah. Unless you believe the rumors that Courtney Cobain had him killed, or Courtney Love. There was a whole documentary on that. Yeah, I don't know if I believe it. I don't know if I believe it either.

I watched the documentary. Still not sold. I didn't want to go down that rabbit hole. I'm like, you guys are leaping to a lot of conclusions. But it was one of those documentaries, too, where they had reenactments by actorsenactments oh the dramatization not a fan of those no because i'm like it takes you out of the fantasy of it being a documentary in the first place especially when you're talking about a dead guy yeah how do you know what happened there it kind of kills it no pun intended so the thing explodes and what is it when it does explode

like what does it look like on your arm? Does it pull up? So, yeah, there was some there was some recoiling going on. And literally, like he said, there was just like tendon fragments like strewn about. Fragments. Yeah. Literally like a bomb. Yeah.

Is that just because the weight of the log? Yeah. I mean, when you're trying to press 485 pounds overhead and your body says, fuck, no, it just goes. What do you weigh about? 240? 280. 280. Yeah. So that's. Yeah. That's 200 pounds over my body weight yeah yeah that's a lot of weight yeah so the rehab is going well for that um and then like is this you doing it oh yeah this is when it blows out no so

this is this is when i actually broke the record so i had already had the american record at this point um and then got the chance so this was like all covid times so we did like virtual record breakers so the judge that's an attention whore uh he he was in lithuania for this oh okay kind of looks like a white supremacist there though with the hand raised it's going sea highland dude so yeah that was 475 so much weight now when they do the logs, like, did they put weight inside the log? Oh, and the ends of the logs. Yeah, yeah. So the log itself weighs, like, I think that weighed, like, 160 pounds or so.

And then we had to add 25s and stuff to the end of it to get it to the contest weight. There's something very primal about lifting a fucking log, too, right? I mean, that's the sport of Strongman, right? Like, we lift stones and logs and like carry shit on our back like that's just what the sport is yeah and so the elbow just totally shit the bed and how long did it take before you could lift again so i was like back in the gym within like two weeks doing lower body stuff but the biggest the hardest part was like getting range of motion back like trying to flex my elbow again. Cause when they did the surgery, my arm

was bent at 90 degrees. So that was a pretty comfortable position, but getting it to straighten or getting it to bend all the way was horrible. Do they anticipate you'll ever get full range of motion? It's been a year. So, so here's the weird thing. Nobody can figure this out. If I'm not, if I'm just here, try to raise my arm. That's as much as I get. But if I'm figure this out if I'm not if I'm just here try to raise my arm that's as much as I get mm-hmm but if I'm pressing like if I'm bench pressing or overhead pressing I can get to full extension press this cup I think it might be too light this is where I get hurt this is where it blows out yeah you'll see that same fucking Hitler yeah same same dude and there it goes oh Jesus Christ.

Oh, shit. And like, you know, I'm a certified athletic trainer, like have a master's degree in sports medicine. So like I legit knew right away what had happened. And my husband comes over to me. He's like, what's wrong? I was like, I just tore my tricep. He's like, no, you didn't.

I was like, no, I totally did. But you didn't think it was as bad as it was? I mean, I knew it was torn, but like I didn't. Yeah, I didn't think it was as bad as it was? I mean, I knew it was torn, but, like, I didn't, yeah, I didn't think it was to that level. Now, what kind of therapy do you do for something like that? Once they reattach it, what's the rehabilitation like? So, I mean, I did a lot of everything, a lot of manual therapy because, like, I produce a lot of scar tissue. Like, even now, like, my olecranon, like the elbow bone doesn't feel like my right one. So when you say you produce, this is my body naturally produces a lot of scar tissue.

So that was something we battled actually, because I was producing too much scar tissue too early in the rehab process that was actually hindering the range of motion gains that I was supposed to be getting. So a lot of like Graston, um, cupping, I was, I did like dry needling and acupuncture. And one of the, one of the first times I went, the therapist couldn't get the needle through the scar tissue because it was too thick. And the best, the way I describe it to people is like, even with, with me, like feeling the needles go in, it felt like pushing a needle through like rubber.

That's how it felt for me too. Now I felt the stickiness of it. Do you think that's just because you train so much so your body is so used to recovering quickly. I think so. Yeah. Must be. Have you talked to other guys that are strong men. Do they have like similar situations.

Yeah. A lot of us like have had like the scar tissue stuff that goes on. And then like I actually bent a few of the acupuncture needles like when they were trying to do them like she pulled them out and was like it was curved i was like oh that's at least it didn't break off it's really interesting how the human body adapts to whatever activity you're doing like a good friend of mine is a doctor and he worked on david goggins and goggins had to come in because goggins they pulled these giant syringes filled with fluid out of his knee. His knee was destroyed.

But he's still running like 100 miles on it, right? Of course. And so the doctor had to trim some of his meniscus. And as he's trimming the meniscus, he said it bent the fucking blade of the scalpel. He goes, usually when I cut meniscus, he goes, I'm not telling you. Yeah. He goes, it just goes right through. He goes, this shit bent the fucking blade of the scalpel he said his he goes usually when I cut meniscus he goes. I'm not telling yeah He goes it just goes right through he goes this shit bent the fucking blade of the scalpel I mean because I've never even experienced meniscus like this in all my years of practicing medicine You have to make Dave Hawkins more badass

But this it's 100% true So it's like you have to I just I'm fascinated by the fact that people adapt like the human body is so it's so adaptable so malleable it it figures out what requirements of it are and then it just pushes did you ever see what eddie is or did no he ran around the entire circumference of the uk and i think he did it in a month so he did did like, was it like a month? It was something like a month. I think it was like, well, the first time he did it, he's done it a couple times, 27 and 27 days. And that was like way more than that. And I'll check.

Yeah. So he wasn't in shape at all. I mean, he just didn't run. He didn't do anything. He said, I'm just going to do this. And along the way, his body starts adapting. So they have this documentary. They follow him with a crew and he's destroyed

I mean his feet they show us he had one day He had to take off because he literally had to have a rest day because the skin on his feet was peeled off It was all red raw meat and like they were putting like you know gauze on it and tending to the wounds But that fucking savage ran a marathon a day every single day to do this when he wasn't in shape. I can't even fathom that. But not in shape. Yeah, that's crazy. So 20 days in or whatever days in, all of a sudden he's talking and laughing and having fun.

His body's like, oh, this crazy motherfucker wants to run every day. Yeah. So he figured out or his body figured like oh this crazy motherfucker wants to run every day yeah so he he figured out or his body figured out how to adapt and change and i got to think with someone like you just lifting gigantic all the time like everything must be weird in you like your tendons are probably weird you know it's like if yeah if someone like went over like you like if they had like a class on physiology and they had to like examine the human body and you were dead and they would go, well, they would be like, this is an unusual example. Let's take a look at this motherfucker.

Like everything, like your joints and I bet your bones are probably crazy dense. Super dense, yeah. Have you ever had them like tested? No, I've never had any of that stuff. How do they do that? I mean, I think there is literally a bone density scan that you can do. Right? You should do that. I mean, I think there is literally a bone density scan that you can do. Right? You should do that.

That'd be fun. Because, like, we were talking about this, that you're not large for that strongman thing. No, I'm the smallest guy at this level. Which is funny because you're 280 pounds. Yeah, I know. That's a lot of weight. But, like, I wonder how much of it is, like, your skeleton and how much of it is, like, the density of the tissue and tissue and like how much adaptation actually takes place. I mean, yeah. I mean, and I've also been doing this for 12 years now. You know,

I did my first strongman competition when I was 17. Wow. You know, now turning 30 here in a couple of weeks, like, you know, so I've been doing this for a long time. So just that like, you know, literal time under tension over the years definitely has to have an effect. That's a young age to do something like that. I would imagine that like strong men stuff like, you know, they talk about like old man strength.

Yeah. Like as you get older, I would imagine that would be a better time. Yeah. I mean, you know, for me, it was just I kind of got in with a CrossFit gym. Honestly, that's how I got into strong man. And they kind of noticed that, you know, he's kind of a chubby, awkward kid that's not terribly athletic. So let's just put him on a barbell, see how much he can lift. Luckily, it worked out pretty well for me.

But I mean, to be fair, like I still sucked at Strongman when I started to like I did my first competition on about four days notice. Had never lift a single Strongman implemented my life. Got my ass kicked, but like loved it because it was so weird and just so different from anything I've ever done yeah the one that weirds me out the most is when they throw the barrels oh yeah I remember I watched one where the guy got hit he threw the barrel he wasn't paying back and hit him is that dude alive still he is really yeah luckily it was an empty keg. It was only a pony keg. It was like a half keg.

What the fuck ever? How much does that weigh? I think it's about like 15 to 20 pounds. 20 pounds. Still dropping from 30 feet under your fucking head. That's not good. There was actually a video, all these gym fail pages and stuff like that. There was one.

We're doing sandbag tosses now, so it's these small sandbags. And this girl threw one up in the air, and she has her arm raised, and stuff like that. There was one, we're doing sandbag tosses now, so it's these small sandbags. And this girl threw one up in the air and she has her arm raised and she's celebrating and the bag comes down around her head like a necklace and just clotheslines her to the floor. Luckily she was okay, but it was

really funny to watch. But I hear that and I see a video like that, I just think blown out discs and years of physical therapy and never being the same again and oh i'm fine but it's she's not par for the course yeah so the crazy sport are you back to 100 now with that left arm no i would say my left arm is probably 75 80 like i'm closing in on like a 400 pound overhead again you know after a year of rehab and stuff like that but like to be honest like this entire year from the time of this tricep has just been like shitty health

wise for me. Cause about a four and a half months ago I got testicular cancer. Oh shit. Yeah. So I had to deal with that too. What happened there? I lost a nut. Damn. Yeah. My buddy Duncan lost a nut. Um, and my buddy Tom green it was crazy You're a fucking young guy get to 29 like no family history of it like it wasn't even a thought I was actually getting ready for world strongest man Had like a super heavy squat and deadlift session one day and I was wearing like a squat suit and a deadlift suit So like those things are Super uncomfortable. What is a squat suit? It literally is like this, I say elastic, but it's just a super thick suit that you wear

that it pretty much aids in the lift, right? Like, you've ever seen guys wear like a bench shirt? You know, it's the same thing, but for a squat movement and a deadlift movement. So like everything gets just jumbled up in there and it's just disgustingly uncomfortable. So like the next day I kind of had some like pain in my groin and I was like, yeah, it's probably just from the session yesterday, but it like kind of got more intense and was like shooting up kind of into my abdomen. I was like, eh, something may be wrong here.

So I checked it out. And the thing is like when people say testicular cancer, they're like, oh, like you'll feel a lump. Mine felt like legit, like a tiny hard string. Like it was nothing crazy. And I was like, okay, like this is a little weird. And we're about three, four weeks before world's strongest man. So I'm like, okay, I have my physical coming up. Let me get a check then. Within a week, it had grown to like the size of a dime. Whoa. And then they were like, yeah, okay. With that kind of growth, we need to get you checked out. Gets me an ultrasound the week later. Now it's the size of like a quarter. And this is on a two. So this, I go in on a Tuesday for my ultrasound. Then they're like, okay, well you, you need to go to an oncologist. Right. So I was like, okay, well

like that's like never having cancer or anything like that's probably the weirdest and most emotional phone call to make. Right. Like when you're like, well, shit, I'm 29. I have to schedule an oncology appointment. Yeah. So I get in for that Thursday. The doctor comes in. I have Joey, my husband, with me.

He literally walks in, puts the paper down. He's like, OK, so you're going to come in on Tuesday and we're going to remove your testicle. I was like, OK, so you're going to come in on Tuesday and we're going to remove your testicle. I was like, okay. Zero to 100 real quick. What is the explanation for the speed of the growth? Because I thought cancer was like a slow progression and you could treat it. Because there's so much hormonal activity in the testes,

you know, like testosterone. Yeah. Testosterone is extremely anabolic. Anabolics make things grow. You know like testosterone yeah testosterone is extremely anabolic Anabolics make things grow. Oh, so it makes cancer grow too exactly So your body is recovering and you got all that test flow and actually growing cancer the piggyback Effect like yeah, is that what's happening pretty Pretty much. Like the cancer's piggybacking on your testosterone? Yeah.

Wow. A fucking, how long before it became the size of a quarter? It was another week. So this is like two weeks. It goes from the size of like a string to the size of a quarter. That's insane. So it just happens out of nowhere? And then from that Thursday to the time I go into surgery, the, by the time they removed everything, they measured it and tested the sample, it was actually just under the size of a half dollar and that was like another five days wow so like testicular

cancer grows at a can grow at an insanely high rate dudes all across the world right now are checking their nuts yeah i mean i will say like the coolest thing is like you know i kind of put everything out there on social media um you know between youtube and instagram and stuff like that and the coolest thing was just like i shared my story about it because like, I never thought I'd be going through this and just kind of saying like, this is what I found. This is how I found it. You know, just dudes check yourself. It's super easy.

I had like legit five or six people find out that they had testicular cancer because I was just kind of candid with what I was going through. It's pretty common, super common. And I'm kind of in the sweet spot, right? Like they say like between the ages of like 25 and 40 are where you're most likely going to get it. Really? Yeah. That's, that's so weird. Yeah.

Does, does it have to do with testosterone? I think so. Yeah. I think it's just like the growth rate and like, you know, hormone maturity kind of in that age range. Isn't it weird that there's like certain organs and certain parts of people's bodies that like regularly get cancer? Like women get regular ovarian cancer. It's very common. Or breast cancer. Breast cancer.

Very common. With dudes, it's nut cancer. Yeah. Or prostate. Yeah. Prostate cancer. It's weird how common it is. But what's crazy is too, what I didn't realize is testicular cancer can actually travel up the lymph nodes into the abdomen and like it can

become like colon cancer really quickly. Right. So like, that's why they act so fast on it. Um, so like before I even had surgery, like I had to get a CT scan, like with the dye and everything to make sure there was no metastasis or anything like that. Luckily, there wasn't any. Now, did they give you any instructions about changing your diet or anything like that? No. No? No. Because it was stage one. Okay.

Right? So there was pretty much what they told me was a crapshoot that I got it. Like, they didn't really give me a rhyme or reason as to why I may have gotten cancer. Hmm. Yeah. So it's just, you might get have gotten cancer. Hmm. Yeah. So it's just, you might get it, you might not. Yeah. That's so fucked.

Right? Yeah. Because it's like, if there was something preventable, like if you get lung cancer and you smoke cigarettes, like, hey. You kind of know why you got it. You know why you got it. Yeah. Yeah.

But not cancer out of nowhere. Just kind of, yeah. Just happens. Wow. And so they remove a ball. Did you put a fake one in? No. You know, so here's the thing with that.

Like, one, it's kind of expensive because it's cosmetic, right? Really? It's not covered by insurance. Don't you just stick a little rubber one in there? That's what I, well, I didn't even know there were prosthetic nuts. They have them for dogs, too. Yeah. Which is the dumbest shit.

But, like, I'm kind of a smartass. And, like, i decided to have like i'm in this moment where i'm in this doctor's appointment i'm like okay i'm having a nut removed in like four days my husband's sitting behind me i was like okay so he's like so the doctor's like oh like you know let's do an exam do you want him to leave i was like it's nothing he's never seen before so he's fine um and then he's like oh like do you want a prosthetic like it'd be easier to put one in while we're in there. I was like, didn't know that was an option.

So he takes them out and shows me some. And so my mind start going, I'm like, got any that are like glow in the dark? What does a fake nut look like? It's like, it looks like a silicone. It's like a little silicone implant. Oh, like a breast implant. Yeah, yeah. Same kind of material.

So clear. They don't have glow in the-the-dark nuts. Nor do they have Bluetooth. You wanted a Bluetooth nut? Yeah. How cool would that be? Then Bill Gates would be sending you messages. I'm more thinking of like it's, you know, we're going to bed and I put like Eye of the Tiger on.

Well, you can get glow-in-the-dark tattoos. You can get your nuts tattooed. Oh, true. Oh, that would hurt. Oh, yeah. I mean, I only have one now,-in-the-dark tattoos. You can get your nuts tattooed. Oh, true. Oh, that would hurt. Oh, yeah. I mean, I only have one now, so it would only be a singular nut. Well, you get your fake nut sack, like, if you want to put one in there. But that's the thing.

After you take one out, like, the other one starts centralizing and growing a little bit. Really? So I have, like, a cyclops sack. Oh, interesting. How much, but you should measure it. How much bigger is it than it used to be? Oh, I didn't get a control measurement prior to the removal. That would have been interesting.

I know. Interesting data. I think you found out your sack gained 30%. How much bigger do you think it is? I don't think I've noticed it much as of yet because it's only been about four months. They say it takes, you know, anywhere like probably about a year for me to like notice it kind of migrating. It hasn't reached its full form. Yeah, no. They say it takes you know anywhere like probably about a year for me to like notice it kind of has a reason for form Yeah, no, it's

And so it picks up about Joe Rogan no my nuts and glow-in-the-dark So it picks up the pace with the yeah, so I mean it's Pretty much standard it picks up the slack for the lack of the other one Yeah, it's my friend Duncan got his wife pregnant after he had the nut removed. Everything's fine. So your test levels basically stay the same? Yeah. Wow.

You know, now it's just like going through, you know, so luckily I didn't have to do chemo or radiation or anything like that because it was stage one. So now it's just like we're doing what's called active monitoring. So I get. Why can't they just take the piece of the nut that's fucked? Because it's one organ. So they just have to take everything out.

And they don't even biopsy it, right? So if you have a growth on your nut, they're just going to go in and take it out. Really? Yeah. Because the attempt to biopsy it, from what I understand, it damages the testicle if you attempt to biopsy it. So if you take a chunk out of your nut yeah and what's weird is when they take it out they don't go through your sack they actually go it's like a hernia surgery they go through like your pant line and then go down oh why yeah um because

all the like organs and things that come with it have to come out so like the epididymis like um they have to take the lymph nodes associated with that testy all that stuff has to come out as well okay so you don't just lose the testicle you know all the cargo yeah do they put that on a plate so you can get a look at it after it's over no I didn't get to see any of it I would have liked to look I mean that's what I was saying I was like could I get the nut back and make a necklace or something yeah formaldehyde have it on your jar next to your office or something. You know? It's like, it was yours. Yeah. Yeah. Well, now it's theirs.

So the test levels stay the same. Yep. And do you have no noticeable difference in, like, the way you feel or anything? No, I feel good. Other than your underwear fit a little different? Yeah. I mean, I will say, like, it was a big, like, psychological moment for me to actually, like, feel it again. Like, actually put, like, my hand on my side again.

Like, cause I've lived 29 years with two of them. Now I only have one. So honestly it took me about like a week and a half to two weeks to like actually be okay with that. Have you thought about going back and putting a fake one in there? I don't want to go through the surgery again. My husband's fine with it.

Yeah. I mean like who wouldn't be? Yeah. Like why would you even want a fake nut? That's the thing. It's like fake. My husband's fine with it. Yeah. I mean, like, who wouldn't be? Yeah. Like, why would you even want a fake nut? That's the thing. It's like fake boobs. It's just for show. Yeah.

Fake boobs don't bother guys, but I think a fake nut would bother people. It's different. Possibly. Yeah. It's like a fake sex organ. It's not just aesthetic. It serves no purpose. Yeah.

It's an odd thing to think that your body turns on you like that. Yeah, it sucks. Does it make you think about the rest of your body? I mean, I take care of myself. Yeah, but you got cancer. That's what's crazy. I do feel pretty good that we had the CT scan and nothing else came up. So we knew it was just stage one and I didn't have to do chemo or anything like that. So now I just have to do regular,

like I have a schedule that I have to follow of CT scans and blood work to make sure nothing comes up. And it has nothing to do with diet, nothing to do with anything. No. That's what's crazy. They say that,

and I don't know if this is accurate, but they say that ketogenic diets are very good for preventing cancer because there's something about cancer needing glucose to grow, whereas ketones, cancer doesn't grow on ketones, but your body can function better. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. You know, like you think fat grows with glucose, so why wouldn't something else that's a little bit more anabolic? Yeah.

So it makes sense physiologically. Yeah. I like carbs. more anabolic. Yeah. So it makes sense physiologically. Yeah. I like carbs. I could imagine. Yeah. When you do that kind of work. I mean, is there anybody that tries to follow a keto diet that does power lifting or strongman type stuff like you?

I mean, you have like Mark and Chris Bell. They do like the carnivore stuff. But they take carbs. I see those guys. They're always eating apples and shit. Yeah. Chris eats a lot of fruit. Yeah.

You know? But they're not doing, they're always eating apples and shit. Yeah. Because he eats a lot of fruit. Yeah. You know. But they're not doing. They're just doing it for aesthetics. They just look good. Yeah. You know they lift weights and you're involved in like serious competition with other gorillas that are trying to pick up super heavy shit. Much bigger gorillas.

Yeah. I would imagine like carbs are almost necessary. Yeah. Yeah. I mean they're a staple in like every meal. What is your standard diet? like a standard plate for you? What do you eat? Typically like anywhere between one to two cups of rice, depending on the time of day

and where my training is at. Eight to 10 ounces of meat and then some veggies. Yeah. Robert Ober said that he's basically rice and meat. Yeah. That's the primary. Is that most strong men? It's the easiest way to get the calories and the and meat. Yeah. That's the primary. Is that most strong men? It's the easiest way to get the calories

and the nutrients in, right? And then like, fortunately, you know, because of what we do and the energy expenditure and like the time our workouts take, like we usually get, most guys get a couple of cheat meals a week. That's why we don't look like bodybuilders, right? Like we eat relatively clean,

but in order to keep up with what we're doing, you know, I mean, shit, sometimes my workouts take like six hours that I'm at the gym. Jesus Christ. You know? So it's like, if I'm there, like, sorry, like a plate of chicken and rice isn't going to do it for me after. Right? No, I can only imagine. And I don't think it'd be bad for you guys to have body fat either. It probably helped. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you don't want anything that reduces your ability to put out strength and that there's nothing about having low body fat that makes you stronger no i mean that's the thing is like at the end of the day we have to be able to perform yeah when we're competing right and like nothing against bodybuilders but the performance is

aesthetic based yeah right like you're standing you're posing granted like I could never do what they do Mainly because I don't want to yeah, but I could do it. I could I just don't want to But like what we do is like we have to be on the stage like lifting crazy shit carrying it throwing it You know like there's there's you know certain level of athleticism and performance that we have to achieve to win Yeah, bodybuilding is one of the weirdest sports because when you're seeing them and they're posing, they're on death's door. Oh, yeah.

Those guys are, like, literally ready to die. Their kidneys are ready to fail. And people look at them as, like, the epitome of health at that moment. They're so dehydrated when you see them like that. That's why they're so shredded. If you're ever backstage at those events, like, they're cramping, their feet are all cramped up, they can't walk correctly.

It's insane. I respect the fuck out of them. It's hard, hard work. It's a difficult thing to do. And it's- Insane discipline. Insane. Yeah, they're on a shit ton of steroids, but listen, the steroids don't make you that big.

No, God no. That's the big misconception. Oh, they're just on steroids. All steroids do is help you recover. That's all they do. If you take steroids and you just sit on your ass, you're going to get fat. Yeah.

Right? Like, the anabolics have to feed something. And if you're not training, it's not going to your muscle. Yeah. So you're just going to get fat doing it. You'd probably get a little stronger. Yeah. I mean, getting up and off the couch every once in a while, you're going to gain some muscle, I guess.

But I just feel like your body with all those hormones would probably just get a little stronger. Yeah. But you're not going to get big like those guys. You're not going to look like Ronnie Coleman. No. Big Ramy right now. Yeah. He just looks insane.

Those guys are so preposterous when you see them in real life. 300 pounds stepping on stage at like 3% body fat. That doesn't make sense to me. It's interesting too, right? Because it's like an anatomy class. When you're looking at all their tissue and everything, it's like you could see where everything connects. Actually see the striations of the muscle.

Yeah. It's insane. It's very strange. But people have associated that with health and vitality to look like that. Meanwhile, there's a story about a new bodybuilder dying every single week don't they usually die from the diuretics that's usually it and some of them from pain pills yeah because they're you know in agony a lot well yeah i mean they're taking you know lasix and stuff like that to get so shredded and lean to step on stage like by the way that's not the eye surgery kids no. No, no. Imagine, they're getting eyes.

I heard it on the Joe Rogan Experience. They take eye surgery to get to lose weight. See, that's the shit you think about that. Coming out of my mouth, I'm like, oh, yeah, LASIK. Yeah, not LASIK eye surgery. Yeah, it's some kind of diuretic, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It's very different. If you want to see what a real strong person looks like, they all kind of look like you. Oh, thank you. You know what I'm saying? They're all like thick. Yeah. Yeah, big, thick. You never like shredded there.

Oh, my God. That's Ray Williams. Look at the size of that guy. 24% body fat when they tested him. Oh, that makes sense. At 400 pounds. Yeah, and he's squatting 1,000 pounds raw right there. Oh, wait.

Oh, my God. That is so crazy. He has 300 pounds of fat-free mass. That's crazy. Yeah. So he has 100 pounds of fat on his body. 30 kilograms more than the most they'd ever studied. Wow.

Jesus Christ. Ray Williams is a very muscular dude. Well, that's the thing, right? If you're going to study someone and you know, and you want to find like real freaks, like the World's Strongest Man, those strongman competitions are the that's some of the freakiest humans alive. Right. Yeah. I mean, what we do doesn't make sense. And I do it.

You know, like at World's Strongest Man in 2019, we had to pull two monster trucks because one was too light. Like, come on. Like, personally, that pissed me off because I suck at that event. Do you? Yeah, and it was a slight incline. Is that a weight event, like where it helps to be like a 400-pound guy versus a 280-pound guy? With that event, mass moves mass.

Yeah. Right? So in that year, I had Thor in my group. The dude weighed 430, 440 when we were competing against each other. Bro, he's pretty light now, isn't he? Yeah, he's I think about 330. He's actually right down the street. Oh, really?

He was at the Onnit gym. He put up Thor's Instagram. I knew he was here lately. I know Rain had them in LA and stuff like that. He might even be here this weekend. I don't know. I think he's here right now because he was at Onnit Gym and he put up video of him hitting the pads. And I have to say, he's doing everything right. He looks solid. He looks really, but it's interesting because he's

learning how to box because he's having these boxing matches. But the way he's doing it is very intelligent. He's not just gritting his teeth and throwing his arms as far and using all his physical muscle power. He's learning how to do it correctly. And everything is like real smooth and polished and technical. When you're fighting, like you do have to be pretty relaxed when you're doing it. You have to be able to generate force quickly, but you also have to be supple. You have to be relaxed because if you're, but you also have to be supple. You have to be relaxed because if you're relaxed, you actually can move faster. When you're really tense up and wind up,

you lose a lot of your ability to close the distance quick. It's got to be like efficient. And the way you get efficient is by repetition with proper technique and learning how to hit paths with proper technique. And when to hit pads with proper technique. And when I first saw him doing that, I was like, oh, my God. Imagine going from being strong man and being the mountain on Game of Thrones to trying to box. Like, this is so awkward. But not anymore, man.

When you see him, did you find it? I don't see it at all. At least not at all. Oh, maybe it's in the On It gym. I switched to that, and I wasn't seeing it there either. God, maybe it's one of the trainers I follow. Recently? Yeah, today.

Okay. Maybe it's one of the trainers I follow that posted it. But fuck, I really think it was him. Shit. I mean, I know he's in the States right now because he was just in LA less than a week ago. He's in Austin. Let's see that right there. See that right there.

That's not at the honor gym. That's just him. Yeah, he's lost like about 100 pounds. Yeah. He looks great. Yeah. No, he looks awesome. It's crazy.

It's like a totally different kind of human now. Big time. Now he looks like a big athlete. I wonder what his long-term goals are in that R. I don't know. There's a lot of money in freak boxing matches. I know. It's crazy.

If he could get Logan Paul to box the mountain. Oh, yeah, Pudzianowski. Oh, yeah, Pudzianowski. Yeah, he won. But he's been fighting for a long time now. Yeah, ever since he stepped out of World's Strongest Man, he went into the MMA world. Watch this. This is an interesting fight.

Pretty quick KO. Watch this. Right here. Boom. Boom. Yeah. Crazy. And the guy who fought is a giant, too.

Yeah. Crazy. But Pudzianowski's been fighting in MMA for a long time. He fought Tim Sylvia, who was the former UFC heavyweight champion, and that was a crazy, stupid fight. Was it good? No. No, he got his ass kicked. But, I mean, like, of course he got his ass kicked.

Yeah. He's literally fighting a former world champion, and he's just a really strong guy learning how to fight. Exactly. And he was a guy, like, when he first started fighting, you could see, like, he'd hit pads, and he'd be like, it would be all arms. Just Neanderthal.

Yeah, but now he's, like, throwing his shoulders in and moving his hips. He's still big as fuck, but he's lost some weight. I feel like none of us strong men are ever going to be small. Right, for the rest of your life probably. When you get to this level, I think you're just like, you know, I look at my life and I'm like, probably the lightest I'll ever be is like 230 to 240. People are always coming to you to open the mayonnaise jar. Always.

100%. Yeah. Yeah. You're probably always keep. I mean, you only lose so much of it. You're not going to ever be like a marathon runner. Nor do I want to be. Right.

Yeah. How long do you think you're going to do this for? I don't know, man. You know, it's interesting. I messaged you a little bit about the stuff where my career is going, right? Because we talked about how Strongman, World's Strongest Man, should be a million-dollar title. It should be. And we're kind of working towards that.

I'm actually like, this is the first time I'm talking about it. So I actually now am the CEO and part owner of Strongman Corporation. Oh, how'd that happen? Like three days ago. Really? Yeah. Yeah. We've been working on it for a little while.

My business partner and I have kind of been, we kind of put our heads together and, you know, honestly, like taking what you were saying and like, how do we build this sport to something bigger? And we decided to kind of start from the grassroots right so strongman corporation it's the largest amateur and professional organization in the world for strongman like just over 12 around 12 000 members worldwide wow um so yeah so as of three years ago now i'm at the helm of it dude congratulations pretty pumped yeah that's fucking badass listen, it is an entertaining thing to watch the strongest fucking humans in the world.

Absolutely. The idea that that's not a big thing, but golf is. Sorry, Jamie. But the people watch golf on TV, because I don't play golf, so I don't watch golf, right? The people that watch golf all play golf. But everybody will watch some fucking gorilla try to throw a barrel over the top of a pole vault beam. Yeah. You know, like that.

It's just, it's a spectacle, right? Yeah. And I think one of the things that we're, that's what we're going to be trying to change. I think it's like people see strong man as something that's so unattainable. And like kind of the, the analogy that my business partner used, it's something I never thought of. It's like, I think strong man for a long time. And the reason it hasn't really grown is because people have tried to normalize it and it's like I think strongman for a long time and the reason it hasn't really grown is because

people have tried to normalize it and it's not normal right like you're not going to sit back and watch the NBA dunk contest to try to get ideas of dunks you want to try in your backyard right right like you watch these guys to do crazy shit that is just out of this world cool like log presses exactly right like that's what strong man should be like you know we should be looking at these people as superhuman freaks you know there's magnus for magnuson yeah that's one of my favorites the car pull yeah so that's that's an event the hercules hold and instead of just doing two pillars they put two cars on ramps and it's like you know we're gonna take the brakes off just hold them together yeah the cars are rolling back and he's holding it as much as

possible you want to see a fucking insanely strong person? You know that girl we've showed her on the podcast before that really tiny girl Stephanie Millinger She's really tiny and she's an incredible like contortionist and her balance is insane and she hangs off the side of cliffs and stuff and does like One hand presses, like literally with her feet dangling off cliffs. That's stupid. So this is her.

She's insanely strong though too. I love the cat on the floor in front of her. Yeah. Yeah, this is a normal day. I know, that cat is so used to her doing freaky shit. Meanwhile. She's so confident because she could kill that fucking cat, right?

That is wild. I know. What she's doing, folks, the people listening, she's got these like dip bars, like individual bars, but she's balancing them on their edges and then she does a press. Oh, the cat was underneath the dip bar. Oh my God. So she could have killed it. Like literally could have killed the cat.

That's a lot of cat lovers going to be mad. Like this is the kind of shit she does. Like doing a handstand. First off, you have to have the balls to walk out to that point on the cliff. Yeah. Right. Like I couldn't even stand there, let alone go up onto my hands. My hands get sweaty watching these things.

I do. I have a weird thing. What can I see? Like heights. My hands get super sweaty. I think it's in Mark Bell's page. Go to Mark Bell's page. It's either Mark or Chris. It might be

go to Big Strong Fast. I think it's I'm pretty sure it's Chris Bell. And then you see her. Nope. Go to Mark. You see her doing this with all these weights. Like, so she's, that's it right there.

Oh, I just saw this today. Look how fucking, she's so tiny, man. So look at her hanging from this bar with one, two, three, four, five 45-pound plates. No, six, seven. Seven of them. Seven, because she's got two behind her. She's got seven 45-pound plates. And she's tiny, man.

I just love somebody. What the fuck was the point of this? Oh, my God. She's getting another one. Oh, why not? Look at this. And then look how fucking strong her hands are. That's crazy.

Yeah. I mean, she's flipping these 45-pound plates and catching them. In a split. That's crazy. You're right. They might not be 45. I think they're 10s. No.

Really? I think so. Yeah, I think those look like rubber. But, I mean, still, that's an extra 70 pounds on top of her, which when you think, like, percentage of body weight, how much does she probably weigh? 120, 130 pounds? I don't even think she's that big. You know?

And you're adding 70 pounds to your body weight. That's a huge percentage. She's hanging with her hands. That's incredible. My grip strength is not even that good. Yeah, I think you might be right. Those might be because I have those Sorenex system in my house. Yeah.

And they have the big rubber plates that are 10s, and they look super impressive. But they're really only 10 pounds. Does it say anything, Jeremy? I'm trying to get it. I thought I saw 25 on one, but. It's hard to see. Yeah. See, when I see plates like that from old school gym

days, I assume they're 45s. One could hope. One could hope and dream. Imagine what an animal she'd be. That would be crazy. If she had that much weight. That'd be insane. So even if she has, even if they're five pounds, it's still crazy impressive. Yeah. It's her hand strength that's so nuts. That's ridiculous.

At one point in time, she's hanging from one hand. Yeah. Which is hard to do. While doing a split between the two uprights of the rack. It's hard to do just holding your hand. Can you see? Yeah. Zoom in on that. I think we'll need to see the other.

Is there a picture of the other side? Because usually the weight is only on one side. The numbers. Yeah, the numbers on one side of the plate. It's crazy. She doesn't have that on her page. Because that's one of the most impressive fucking things I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, the numbers on one side of the plate. It's crazy. She doesn't have that on her page because that's one of the most impressive fucking things I've ever seen in my life. That's crazy. Yeah.

But she's a real freak. That's insane. Yeah. I mean, if you take peak human performance with that kind of flexibility and balance and take it. Because she does it with these really life-risking moves, like hanging over cliffs and shit. Yeah, I mean, I just lift heavy shit. I'm not going up a mountain to do it.

So when will you be back fully? When do they anticipate that you'll be back? I mean, it's been a year. My personal timeline is I think probably like another year. Really? Yeah. Wow. Have you got any stem cells shot into there? No, I haven't done stem cells. I haven't done PRP. Do you want to? Um, if I had the opportunity, but like life's kind of busy right now, like I'm back to work in a full time job while doing strong man and doing all that that stuff so what are you doing as a full-time job uh so i'm an athletic trainer at a high school oh no kidding yeah back in western mass so when did you start doing that again um i jumped back into it so last time when i was on you know like i was just doing strongman and what i realized is i became a lazy strongman right like when you have all day and your only job is really to train and run an Instagram page, it's pretty easy to become unmotivated.

Is that real? It was for me. For me, I'd wake up, my husband would go off to work, and I'd be like, all right, I'll go to the gym around 11. And a workout that should only take me two hours took me four because I was bullshitting a lot of the time. Sounds like heaven. I mean, yeah. You don't have to do shit. Why'd you get a job? Fuck you doing, man? a lot of the time. It sounds like heaven. I mean, yeah, but like shit. Why did you get a job?

Fuck you doing, man? You were living the dream. No, but like my performance was decreasing as well. Really? Yeah. Like I wasn't, I wasn't, I just wasn't able to do it. So a job helps your performance? Yeah, because I'm, I'm more structured in my day.

Right? Like, so now I'm an athletic trainer at a high school. So I know I don't go in like my schedule is pretty nice. Like I go in at like noon and most of the days work until about five thirty. But on game nights, sometimes I work until nine and I'll get my training in either in the morning or in the evening. But it's like I know I only have a certain amount of time to do it. So I need to make the most of that time and maximize my workout. That's fascinating. So you needed some sort of obligations in order you to sort of structure your discipline. Is that fair to say? Yeah. And I think like that's just always how I've lived. You know, like even when I was in college and grad school and stuff like that, it was like I was always a go, go, go type of person. Like I never had downtime per se.

So I guess for me, like I honestly just didn't know what to do with it. Were you on Instagram all day? A lot of the day. That's a problem. Yeah, 100%. I bet if you got a flip phone and you just had an open day, you'd get shit done. Well, that's a problem. Ever since I was on your show, I got more sponsors, which means more Instagram obligations.

So I have to be on there more often. Just wait now. You're going to be coming in even hotter and faster. That's fine. I'll take it. So do you, do you find any restrictions because of the job that bother you like time wise where it gets in the way? No, like as long as I plan, it's fine. You know, like I look at my game schedule for the week of the games that I have to cover and practices and stuff like that. Um, And just kind of plan backwards around that. And I'm good. Is there any benefit in helping people and training people? Because when I was doing Taekwondo, one of the things that I noticed is that I got a lot better when I was teaching.

Yeah. So, so I guess like there's a, like Thomas kept that misconception is like, as an athletic trainer, I'm like, I'm a healthcare professional, right? Like, so I'm the guy that goes out onto the field when somebody gets hurt oh that's what I do okay so you're not like we're not a coach yeah no I'm not like a personal trainer oh yeah so so I do sports rehab in the afternoon I cover practices taping bracing concussion evaluations why don't they use you for like strength and conditioning work I would imagine like no time you know like based based on the time that we have you know the kids are in school during the day and then the

afternoon is all sports practice and stuff like that and i have to be out there you know like i sit out at football practice in case somebody gets hurt which most of the time somebody does and i have to take care of it and so when those kids have like say at football teams when those kids have a practice they just basically have a practice a day. Do they have any weight room sessions? Not at the school that I'm at, no. And selfishly, I don't want that to be the case because I don't want to be at work that late. Quit your job, man.

You had the dream. What the fuck are you doing? You had the dream. Well, and now part of the problem is, you know, fuck had cancer so that shit's expensive Oh like even with health insurance cancer cost me like over 12 grand really and now I'm gonna be meeting my deductible at least every year because I have to get for the sofa my schedule for my cancer like monitoring I have to get a CT scan and blood work every three months for two years and then it's every six months for another two years and then once a year

on year five the whole insurance thing drives me fucking crazy you're telling me i feel like if you have insurance and then you get sick the insurance is supposed to pay for it it's such a weird concept like even deductibles it's like oh we want to make more money than we make so you have to pay something like why am i paying you yeah i pay you know i pay i think it's like i think for my husband and i it's like 400 bucks a month 90% of time I don't use that shit right so all that money just goes to them go to them and then oh now you Are sick, but you have to pay another four grand before we even kick in anything towards you You know so it's like I'm paying 400 bucks a month for for my health insurance now

I have to pay another four grand guaranteed every year now for the next few years because of how expensive blood work and CT scans Are and how often I have to take them. It's so fucked Yeah, because it's like something like the whole insurance scam is so interesting because it's like you're you're paying a company in case Shit goes wrong, but then you have to pay them when it does go wrong. Yeah, it should be like fully covered But then I don't know. I don't, I'm the worst finance person on the face of the earth. Don't come to me with any of these questions. But that shit drives me nuts.

And I remember when, you know, they were talking about insurance in California. Like when the fires went down, like how many insurance companies just went under and just were fucked because they didn't really have the money to pay for all the houses that they insured. That blows my mind. Like, what are you talking about? Where does it go? But wait a minute.

You insured the house, but we insured a lot of houses. We didn't anticipate a fire of this magnitude. Okay, but you did insure all those houses for fucking fire. Yeah. How do you not have that money? You gave the policies, so.

Somebody told me that's the case with banks, too, that you have all your money in a bank, but if everybody pulled their money out of the bank, the bank would be fucked. It's sort of like a big old Ponzi scheme. Yeah, they wouldn't be able to pay everybody if they pulled all their money out. What the fuck does that mean?

Where's the money? It's like that was that guy, Bernie Madoff, right? That's how he got fucked. Yeah. He got fucked. Well, he got fucked because he was a criminal. That'll do it. But during the 2008 recession, that's when everybody started saying, hey, I'm going to need that money.

We lost our job, blah, blah, blah. And then he's like, there is no money. I don't got it. I'm in the middle of this podcast about Elizabeth Holmes, who is the lady who ran Theranos. Do you know what that is? No. That was that fake blood test company. Yes.

And she hoodwinked really big people. She hoodwinked the guy, the head of Fox. What's his name? The old dude that ran Fox? Rupert Murdoch. She got him for like $100 million. She got Betsy DeVos for $100 million. I mean, I love that. What's going on

here, Jamie? These fucking pop-ups. Yeah, Betsy DeVos was misled by the Thorens founder for investing $100 million. So I'm listening to this podcast. It's really good. It's called The Dropout. And she dropped out of college. I guess they call it The Dropout because of that. I don't know why. It's called The Dropout. Because she dropped out of college.

I guess they call it The Dropout because of that. I don't know why. But it's all about how much they scammed and all about how many people dumped money into this thing. And then at one point in time, she was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of like $9 billion. Damn. She was the most wealthy self-made woman in history. And it was all fake. Because most of these broads get that shit from divorce.

I don't know if you know that. Yeah. It's pretty hilarious. If you look at like the, sorry I said broads ladies, but if you look at the rich women or with the Y, whatever you want, whatever you say, whatever you want. But if you look at like the wealthiest women, the vast majority of them got it from divorce. But not this lady. She got it from theft.

Hey. That's one way to make your money. Criminal enterprise. I heard on the radio there was actually this woman that she ran a coupon scheme. I did hear about that. That she learned how to manipulate the barcode so when people scanned them, the money would get deposited in her bank account. So she ended up making like $38.1 million off of this. Is there a movie coming out

or just came out about it, I think? About her? With the coupons? That's awesome. It's called like Queen Pins. Is she in jail now? Yeah, I think she got like 12 years or something like that.

These people gotta know when to bail. You know? Yeah. Don't wait till you get $38 million. No. Leave at $30. Do we have $30? Give me $5. I'm No Leave at 30 Do we have 30 Give me 5 I'm cool with that

Do we have 5 million Let's get the fuck out of here Yeah They're gonna catch on We can kind of lay low Yeah Well I mean I've never had 5 million dollars But you might be able to kind of lay low

With 5 million dollars Depends on how you live True If you want to live like Kanye West I don't think it's gonna work No If you want to be a baller

I could see you with a big fur coat Showing up at the I mean I mean, I'm pretty bougie, but that's next level I mean no I'm not really that because you should go hunt a grizzly bear kill it eat it and then use its fur To make a coat that'd be a pretty epic story row come on, and that's your comeback coat like wear that I'll be pretty badass to have a comeback coat in the first place. Yes. You need a comeback coat. I like that.

An actual grizzly bear. You want to take me hunting? Let's do it. I do. Let's go to Alaska. All right. Shoot one of them giant Kodiak bears. Because we're going to need a big one for you.

We're going to need a real bear. All right. You know? Could you think about a full-length, down-to-the-ground grizzly coat? I mean, with the mohawk, it'd look pretty epic. Yeah, dude. I'm in. And one of them cloud machines as you walk through the curtain.

You know, one of those things. They have those smoke machines coming and the music playing. If we need a director of production, I'll hire you for Strongman Corporation now. I'm thinking about it now. I'm thinking about it. Maybe I need another job too. Maybe that's what's wrong with me. I like it.

The idea of needing a job to have discipline is kind of interesting. But I have heard that before. I remember I was reading about these guys that were doing strongman type shit and powerlifting shit. And it was in this article and this guy was giving advice about how to get into it. And one of the things that he said is get a job that requires you to do manual labor. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of guys like like one of my previous coaches, um, Derek Poundstone, he like was a Mason for years before I became a cop. Yeah. Right. And that's just like builds up stupid kind of grip and forearm strength and just like,

you know, like some of the strongest people that I know, like there was actually a guy, Mike Burke, um, who was a pro strong man. I think he was able to carry i think he was like six two by fours in one hand at a time and he was like he was a construction worker like building houses and like he'd be able to go up a ladder with like six two by fours in a hand that's like same like it's just crazy how does that even fit i don't know i think his hands were like 11 and a half inches or 11 inches something like that yeah um masons those those guys are always strong as fuck. I had one summer where I had to work. I did construction and I worked on a wheelchair ramp at a Knights of Columbus Hall.

And the entire time I worked there, all we did was carry bags of cement and pressure-treated lumber. And I quit after a couple months. But I remember it was a huge lesson to me, first of all, that I never want a job like that. And that people do get jobs like that and they stick with them for life. That's crazy. Yeah, crazy. But also that time is precious. And the time that I spent doing that all day, at the end of the day, I was so exhausted that I would go to train.

And when I go to train, I had nothing. Yeah. I had nothing in the tank. I remember, like, hitting the bag and just, like, I just couldn't generate any energy. I just had no power. Pre-workout's not going to do shit for you. There was no pre-workouts back then either. This is back in the day.

I'm old. This is in the 80s. Nobody had pre-workouts. It was just, you just worked out. Just D-ball. Yeah, I mean old. This is in the 80s. Nobody had pre-workouts. It was just you just worked out just d-ball Yeah, I mean some guys drank coffee. I guess that was like your pre-workout Maybe I just wasn't in the bodybuilding scene. Maybe those guys did didn't they use poppers didn't guys like crack Nitrates and shit under their nose. Oh smelling salt. Yeah the ammonia. Yeah. Yeah. What is what is it about smelling salts? They get you ramped up. I mean come under their nose, right? Yeah. Yeah, the ammonia. Yeah. What is it about smelling salts that get you ramped up?

I mean- You crack them under their nose, right? Yeah, yeah. It hurts. Yeah? So I think it just like initiates this like fight or flight. Is that legal before tournaments? Oh, yeah.

Really? You do it? I should have brought some, man. I could have had you try it. Yeah. I got one that's literally called Hellfire. Wait a minute. So they have brands of smelling salts?

Oh, there's entire companies that just make smelling salts. Just for lifting? Yeah, this company that I work with. Jamie, order up some smelling salts. We're going to do this. Because we're putting in a gym next door. Do you want legit hardcore shit? I'm not going soft.

Do you know the guy Jujimufu? Yes. Right? I know it because of Derek from moreplatesmoredates.com. He had him featured in a video. That guy's gigantic. So, Jujie, deceivingly. They were trying to say that he's not on the juice.

I think he's only like 5'8". Yeah, but he's... He's shredded. He just did his first bodybuilding show. He did the Olympia amateur bodybuilding show. They were trying to say he's not on the juice. Like, how's that? I don't know.

How's that possible? I don't know if it is. How's that? But this dude, he has, yeah, that's him. He's psycho. It's very unlikely that that guy's not in the sauce, right? But he's awesome. And he, at Worlds in 2019, he came up to me and he had just started the smelling salt company called Ah.

Literally, that's all it's called. And he comes up and he's with he's like hey rob smell this and like a stereotypical dude without even thinking i do and he put it into my nose and i took a whiff dude i'm not kidding i threw up i thought my nostrils were bleeding i was crying for at least five minutes because of how bad it hurt. Really? That shit's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it dangerous? No. But if it makes your nostrils burn, like, what's going on?

I mean, I think it could be fair. It is a chemical reaction that's occurring in the bottle that you're inhaling. So it can't be amazing. It's literally like, so, like, they have the little ammonia caps that, like, paramedics will use to wake up somebody when they're unconscious. Yeah. This is, like, what we use is that, but like amplified by 10. Is it just okay because you only use it rarely? Yeah.

Like I use it. You're doing that all day long. Oh yeah. Fuck yeah. He's got a custom salt called woke. Woke. Custom scented smelling salt. What is in there?

It doesn't say. I was trying to look at it. It's just a bunch of like literature and it doesn't say what's in there. How the fuck can you have something like that and not tell people what's in there? It doesn't say. I was trying to look. It's just a bunch of literature, and it doesn't say what's in there. How the fuck can you have something like that and not tell people what's in it? You know, Joe, I don't think these things are FDA approved. No. Well, guess what? What is FDA approved?

True. A bunch of shit that's terrible for you. True. I mean, isn't Oxycontin FDA approved? Yeah, that's the one that I smell. Yeah. Most raw materials. Oh, okay.

What does that mean? What the fuck does that mean? Most sophisticated formula. Most raw materials. It just fucking hurts What does that mean? What the fuck does that mean? Most sophisticated formula. Most raw materials. It just fucking hurts, man. It sounds like he wrote all that. Right? But yeah, it's legit.

So what do you do? You just squirt it? No, literally. Because that's a bottle. You open up the bottle and hold it about eight inches away from your face and it'll get you. That far? Oh, yeah, man. Jamie, order that shit right now, please.

What's the best shit to order? The hellfire or his shit. That's probably the strongest I've used. Like that. I don't use it cause it's actually too strong. Oh yeah. Order that. Like the hellfire stuff is like just enough to like really get me going and like be like,

okay, yeah, that sucked, but let's, let's pick up something heavy. Yeah. I want my first experience with smelling. So it's terrible.

Fucking awful. I want, I'm going to film it too. Yeah, I want my first experience with smelling salts to be fucking awful. I'm going to film it too. I'll put it on Instagram and I'll tag it. Hell yeah, absolutely. So I'll find out if I throw up as well. Yeah, but that thing is like he put it in my nose and I took a whiff. I'm excited to do this. Oh, man. I'm excited to make a video.

Yeah, no, it's terrible, but fabulous at the same time. So the idea is you smell it and then why does it make you stronger? Like, what does it do for you? I think because it just, like, it amplifies everything. Like, it's pain, right? So, like, you fought. Like, when you're in pain and you're in a situation, like, it kind of just elicits this response, like, you have to do something. Like a fight or flight.

Exactly. Right? So, like, if you're fighting and you're, you know, in an armbar or something hurts like you're gonna do whatever it takes To get out of that position so is that why dudes like slap their chest exactly there's um have you ever seen this benchpresser Scott Mendelsohn no oh dude he legit goes on to stage and has his wife smack the shit out of him before he benches Like she'll just stand there and just wail on his face before he goes, like, four or five times, and then he lays down and bench presses 700 pounds. Clay Guida and his brother, Clay Guida fought in the UFC.

He still fights in the UFC, but he's fought in the UFC for a long time. And his brother would bring him up to the cage, and then right before he would go in the cage, his brother would smack him in the face, like, a bunch of times. Like, one, two, three, four. So here's the guy. Yeah. Oh, is that a bench suit? Is that why his arms of times like one two three four so here's the guy yeah oh is that a bench suit is that why yeah so that's that's the bench shirt and then his wife is gonna come up and she's there's the ammonia smelling salts and then here we go just oh my god literally smacking the shit out of him she seems to enjoy that she's like you motherfucker you left the seat up, you didn't do the laundry.

Yeah. Yeah. So that gets them hyped up even more. I wonder if they've done, like, controls where they've had, you know. I think it's different for everybody, right? Like, I've had somebody, like, come and, like, double-hand trap slap me right before I deadlift. I'm like, no, man, that just fucking hurt.

I'm not into it now. I see people drinking whiskey. Is that different? I know it's the same thing, but how does that compare to... Yeah, why do they drink whiskey? I don't know. To be honest, I don't really drink.

At all? No, not into it. Just not a thing for me. Good for you. I just get stoned instead. That's better. Yeah, way better. And that's not good for lifting.

No, that's why I do it at night. But it is good for lifting. I mean, it wouldn't be good for lifting like the heav that's why I do it at night. But it is good for lifting. I mean, it wouldn't be good for lifting like the heaviest weight, but I do like to get high and lift. So there's a lot of bodybuilders that'll like take sativa prior to working out, like just a little dose. Because like it does help that like mind muscle connection. Like guys feel like they can focus a lot more on what they're doing in the gym. For me, like, yeah, it would just fuck me up too much, man.

If I'm like trying to deadlift 900 pounds. You're doing gorilla shit. Yeah. It's a different kind of shit. But I love it when I hit the bag. I like to smoke weed and hit the bag. Yeah. Because I feel like my technique is better. Like, I'm more in time.

Aware. My timing, yeah. My movement is better. And when I'm lifting, I feel like I can feel all the muscles. You can feel everything. Yeah. You know, you feel all the fibers. You feel when you're doing things wrong yeah and that's that's exactly what i'm saying like that's why a lot of like really good bodybuilders will get a little stone before

they go train because they can focus better do you ever do yoga i don't i dude i'm like probably the most immobile piece of shit there is it's like my husband gets on me all the time like i have negative ankle ranger motion like i can't even get my ankle to neutral. But this is not a problem for what you do. Like no strong man. I'm functionally mobile in my sport. In your sport. In my sport.

But your sport doesn't require mobility. It just requires grr. Yeah. I mean there's some level of mobility, you know, to be able to like reach down to the ground and pick up an Atlas stone. Right. You know, or get to triple extension while throwing a bag and stuff like that. Is there any benefit to being more flexible than you are? Yes and no.

Right. Like, I think it would take some time to get strong in those new ranges of motion that may it would probably be a detriment to where I'm at in my career right now. Because it would take away from the time you use for other stuff. Exactly. Like there's some guys like Martins Lises, who is crazy mobile, can just like squat below parallel, no problem, just have no issues whatsoever. But he's like worked in those range of motions for years, right? And he has the strength at those end ranges, whereas like, I just don't. And getting to the point where I can hit those, you know Those ranges of motion and stay strong I think would take away from where I'm at right now That makes sense

There's only so much time in a day and the resources that you would use to recover from all that kind of stuff You could be using to recover from the power lifting moves. Yeah, I mean I know it would take away from my training Right like devoting an hour to mobility a day like, like an hour is a long time, right? So to be able to do that while working, while training, and like the gym I go to is 45 minutes away from my house, so it's not like I'm close. Right. Do you have any weightlifting shit at your house? Yeah, I do. I actually, like two weeks ago, picked up a sponsor that like the Rep Fitness, they picked me up and they sent me like an entire home gym oh nice so like i have that at home now yeah garage setup yeah so i have a full

power rack weights like dumbbells up to 150 like ghd stuff like that that changes everything yeah it's gonna be really nice to be able to come home and like just hit like my squat session or bench workout and stuff like that when i'm at home and not have to spend almost another two hours in the car that day. Yeah. I was talking about Soren. I'm wearing a Soren Eric shirt. It's a sponsored shirt. Not really.

But he's my friend. But they set up this gym at my house. And if I know that I have to leave in an hour, I can just run into the gym, get 45 minutes in, full tilt, shower shower up and i'm good yeah it's like that's giant because otherwise it would i just it just wouldn't get done because i wouldn't have the time to get to the gym having something at home i mean you don't need a gym you know have a fucking kettlebells or some some free weights something i mean you could torture yourself with you know a set of like 25 pound dumbbells well yeah or a 25 pound medicine ball yeah do some wild shit with yeah so i'm excited i'm excited to have that stuff in my house now

where i can like go down and just like crush some shit and you know just have to walk upstairs to shower now yeah that's a giant investment if anybody wants to like to really invest in your health just get some equipment get a chin-up bar yeah just chin-up bar and a power rack you know just and the nice thing is like so like rep they have like a one thousand dollar like at home gym kit where you get like a rack i think you get like 400 pounds of plates you get a barbell oh nice you know so like you get the basics like 400 pounds for most people's gonna be more than enough yeah um you know so to be able to like do that, it's great. Yeah. Well, the reason why I brought up yoga is yoga is my absolute favorite thing to do high. Smoking pot and going to yoga is-

I could probably get down with that. My God, dude. It's like a life-changing experience because as you're doing these poses, it's like you're feeling your tissues stretch out and then, you know. Yeah. I do the hot yoga too, so you have to like deal with your shit because you're doing i love that you want to quit now are you like a sativa guy indica hybrid where do you fall i'm i like sativas but i like indicas too but the thing about indicas is sometimes you

can go too far and then you just you just sit down you're stuck and then you're like i can't go anywhere yeah yeah some people say it's bullshit. Some people say that the idea of the differences between the two pots are, it's nonsense. I feel like I feel a difference. Yeah. Like with me, like I definitely like I smoke at night and I definitely feel like maybe it's just because it is at night, but like I definitely feel like more demotivated, I guess.

Like when I smoke an indica where I'm just like all right I'm just gonna chill and not move my ass off the couch now are you an edibles guy can be yeah depends on depends on what time I have to wake up in the morning cuz sometimes like they kind of fuck me up the next day to work going yeah man but like you're not high you're just groggy as shit like so like it all depends that's sometimes like that's a weekend thing for me. So what about recovery methods? Do you do ice baths? Do you do cryotherapy? Do you do sauna? I'm a sauna guy. Love sauna.

Oh, yeah, man. I'm a giant fan of that. I do that every day. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. And then, you know, like some light cardio, like I have some assault equipment at home. Like I'll just get on the bike and ride for like 20 minutes or just the treadmill or something like that. And then I have like the Normatec like compression boots that I use as well. I have those too.

Those are cool. You know, Hyperice, the company that makes it, they make a lot of great shit, man. They really do. They make those massage balls that vibrate. Dude, that's a game changer. Oh, yeah. Those are game changers because they really do they make those uh massage balls that vibrate dude that's a game changer oh yeah those are game changers because they really like the shake the house yeah no i i love they sent us a whole uh rack out there with you know the handheld massagers and i love that rollers that massage yeah that's big yeah and then like I try to get like regular body work done as often as

possible right like deep tissue like fascial stretch therapy stuff like that no for someone to do that to you that has to be a fucking event it's it's a chore like what kind of person do you get that does a deep tissue so the guy that strong the guy that works on me he's been a buddy of mine for a long time he actually works with the New York Rangers oh there you go me, he's been a buddy of mine for a long time. He actually works with the New York Rangers. Oh, there you go. But he's like full on, full body sweat by the end of it. Just like dripping. It's a session.

Those dudes, that's a workout in and of itself, right? Those dudes must get strong as fuck just from doing that. Oh, yeah. Because you've got to imagine all that moving with your hands. I bet their hands are strong as fuck, right? Oh, dude. Like I'll like, you know, even like me just like working on somebody like five minutes and I'm like, all right, my thumbs are good. I'm out. Yeah.

Even like I have something going on with my neck right now and I massage my own neck with my thumbs. I get in there with my thumb and I'm only good for like a couple of minutes. Yeah. like a couple of minutes and then yeah yeah that kind of uh like super hard deep tissue massage or you know like rolfing that kind of stuff yeah that that has a big effect huge huge i love it like and it it's i dread it every time going into the session because i know what i'm getting myself into but it is like on the other end of it, it's just so helpful. How often do you do that? Up until recently, it was about like once a week.

And it was like, I'd be sore as shit like the next day, like just torn up. Yeah. But you know, then 48 hours later, you're like, all right, I'm good to go. I can rock and roll. I used to go to a guy who had like a metal piece it was like this massage tool it looked almost like a chisel and he would get like his palm on it and he would work it into your muscles yeah that's spicy yeah but i don't know if it's

necessary i don't think while this guy was doing that i was like is this uh i feel like elbows work just as well like did he invent this i didn't I didn't really look into it that much, but I was thinking this might not be the best thing for you. But everybody's got their own sort of weird thing that they like to do to loosen up the tissue and the fascia. Yeah. You got to do something, right? Absolutely. Like I have a buddy of mine. He's crazy.

So he actually bear crawled the New York City Marathon. How long did that take? I think it took just under 24 hours so he did it to like raise money for like men's mental health awareness and stuff like that yeah and he like he's just like he's actually training right now to climb consecutively climb the highest peak on every continent wow like that's his next thing that he's doing dude bear clawing bear crawling 100 yards is ridiculous yeah and he did it for 26.2 miles what does he look like i mean his name is devin levesque is he a savage i mean he's he has to be he looks like i mean he's like looks super athletic, played college football, like lean, like. Is that him? That's him, yeah.

Let me see some video of him bear crawling. Yeah, this is him like finishing the bear crawl. Oh, so he's got something, some shit on his hands. Oh, yeah. He had like pads on. Dude, he was doing it on concrete and asphalt. Look at this. Like what is his back like at the end? Oh, his hands are fucked up. He's like, my hands are still only 50%. Ah, look at this. Like, what is his back like at the end? Oh, his hands are fucked up.

He's like, my hands are still only 50%. Ah, look at that. He went flying off the treadmill. Look at this. Yeah. Watch this. Whee. Oh, my God, dude.

Speaking of this video here, those really intense training videos. Yeah, like he'll be on the treadmill. People are throwing med balls at him and stuff like that. He just does all this crazy shit. You know, the one thing about Instagram that is a little bit,

it's not the one thing, there's a lot of things that are disturbing, but one of the things is that the need to one-up everything. Yeah. And the need for, everybody has this, well, I'm going to have this new method

and it's going to be even, people are going to throw fucking flaming arrows at me while I'm deadlifting. You know, there's everyone's looking for some angle to get more attention. Yeah. I mean, that's my thing. Like, I'm not that guy on social media. Right. Like, I just think a 900 pound deadlift should be cool as shit. You got a lot of attention just because of the name, like your Instagram name. World's Strongest Gay. Yeah. People are like, OK, well, Instagram name, World Strongest Gay. Yeah. People are like, okay. I mean, good and bad. Tell me what's up.

Good and bad, right? Like, I'm coming out with a children's book. And we showed the cover of it a couple weeks ago. And the messages I got, like, people were like, you do Strongman just to rape kids. Like, I'm like, no, man. Like, I'm just trying to be cool. And like the book's not even really about being gay. It's honestly like,

so it's kind of like a journey about my story and stuff like that. And like, once you accept yourself for who you are, you can achieve awesome things. Like the fact that I have a husband is just a part of the story. It's not the main part of it, but like, that's all people get.

But yeah, with it, with an Instagram name, like world's strongest gay, it's, you know, I, I'm lucky to just a part of the story It's not the main part of it, but like that's all people get but yeah with it with an Instagram name like world's strongest gay It's you know. I'm lucky to get a lot of attention. What is like yeah? What is the? hate ratio like on social media um I would say it's probably like I Would say it's like probably 75 25 positive hate yeah 25. That's a lot. Yeah, it's a good amount and How much of their hate is misspelled a lot yeah it's a good amount and uh how much of their hate is misspelled a lot yeah interesting a lot yeah it's a lot of non-english speaking people who have like you know zero posts and like four followers you know like because i mean i will say like i'll creep on their pages be like who is this asshole and like like, it's nobody. Well, they might not even be real. No, they probably aren't.

You know, there's a whole sort of ecosystem of these troll farms that exist. I don't know if you know this. No. Yeah. I've had it explained to me by several different people. And I'm trying not to fuck this up. But Rene Duresta was one of the ones who explained it the best. There's these troll farms, particularly in Russia, and they have them in Macedonia. They actually

just found out that out of the top 20 Facebook Christian pages, 19 of them were run by troll farms. So all these pages that people think that they're getting in debates about whether or not abortion should be right, they're run by these troll farms in Eastern Europe. And what they're trying to do is get people to argue. Russia has this crazy long-term game plan to destroy the United States. And one way they want to do it is by consistently feeding the online arguments. And one way they do that, like that one that I sent you, Jamie, that's 100% a troll farm. There's a bunch of different pages that are dedicated to different things. Like they have ones for Black Lives Matter. And you would say, oh, well, this is a page

that's dedicated to racial injustice racial injustice uh-uh no It's a page by Russians who just want to argue with people so they'll say inflammatory things on these just like the spark and they will use their comments and they'll comment on like Christian pages or You know like people who want to bring back the fucking rebel flag like that kind of shit And then they'll get them to go to their page and talk shit and it's like this little cat and mouse game damn yeah they organized a texas separatist meeting across the street from some uh islamic freedom meeting so they had them what the hell they do it on purpose so they had smart people across like fuck you no fuck you and they're like

Angry at each other and they neither one of them were in on it They were both be manipulated by people that were in Russia. Damn. She said she found hundreds of thousands of posts and there was Thousands and thousands of pages that they were confirmed that had been run by these troll farms that they were confirmed that had been run by these troll farms. That's insane. And hundreds of thousands of memes that she said were really funny. Like some of these memes, like you would read the memes and it's hilarious. So like I think that with someone like you who's outspoken, you know, a successful power lifter but also like proudly gay,

they would use you as like a person to attack because people would defend you, and then people would see what they're doing, and then it would cause this kind of friction and tension. That's what they're trying to do. I'm honored. That's great. They found you. Thank you.

Appreciate it. It'd be nice to find out what's what, like who's who with these things, because I think there's quite a bit of them. I know anything political, anything that has to do with COVID-19 or anything that has to do with elections and anything that has to do with abortion rights, things that are like- Low-hanging fruit. Yeah, but big discussions where it's guaranteed to have people interacting about it. Divisiveness. They jump in on that shit. Damn. So when you're getting

these assholes posting at you that barely speak English, that's what's going on. That makes sense. I mean, I'm sure there's like real bigots in there, but I think a lot of them are not. No. It's fucked. I mean, it helps my page interaction, so I'm cool with it.

Push me up in the algorithm. And that's good for sponsors. It is, yeah interaction. So I'm cool with it. Push me up in the algorithm. And that's good for sponsors. It is. Yeah. I mean, the more I'm being seen, the more I'm being viewed, the happier they are. So that's a, it's a weird world. That's a world of a lot of athletes these days, right? It's like interacting with sponsors and social media.

Yeah. I mean, it is, it is like another full-time job, right? Because with each sponsorship comes, you know, dedicated posts and time that you have to spend with each of them, how you have to interact with the fans on your post for each sponsor, you know, content creation and timing of stuff like it's it really is like a full job just to run social media stuff. Do you find that you think that people fuck with you a little bit just to try to get you to react? Yeah, but it doesn't really work. Yeah, you have a pretty thick skin. Yeah, I don't fucking care, man. You know, like, nothing bothers me at this point.

That's good. That's healthy. You know, it's... Thank God. I have friends that are, especially in the entertainment business, that read their stuff and then you can tell they're depressed. And they're like, what are you doing, man? You're reading mean comments?

Stop reading that. Like, I see them, but I'm just like, all right, that sucks for you. Like, glad you feel that way. Yeah. Appreciate the comment. Is it mostly just anti-gay stuff? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that's pretty much it. What's ironic and what I think is funny is these people will follow a page called World's Strongest Gay. And then I post a picture of me and my husband, and I lose followers. Really? Yeah. Like, every time. Every time I post a picture of me and Joey, I lose anywhere between 500 and 1500 followers.

Wow. It's like pretty drastic. It's not just a couple. It's the Russians. But I'm like, fucker, like what do you expect? I literally have gay in my name. Yeah. Well, being gay is like, I think it's illegal in Russia.

Oh yeah. They legit have concentration camps like in Chechnya for LGBTQ people.q people whoa oh yeah concentration camps oh yeah man they're like picking people off the street whoa it's insane and what do they do with them in the concentration camps they try to like re-educate them or something i don't know usually kill them like they they go away. Pull that up. I don't know. There are some articles that I've seen about Chechnyan concentration camps and stuff like that, yeah.

In Chechnya in particular? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it's fucking crazy. Yeah, we forget that the freedoms that we have here are not, this is not the whole world. No.

You see what's happening in China with the Uyghur Muslims being shipped off. It's crazy. And trains like. Yeah. Like that's 2021. It's insane. That's happening right now. And that one basketball player, God bless that man who is standing up.

And has cancer. Yeah. Yeah. That guy has fucking courage. Yeah, that guy has fucking courage. Like, real legit courage, because the NBA does not want to have anything to do with any of that stuff. What is this, the Gay Purge real sports trailer on HBO? Oh, that's that guy.

Yeah. Yeah, he's the head of Chechnya. He said this is not, is he speaking in English? So, yeah, he's speaking the same. Okay said this is not. Is he speaking in English? So, yeah, he's still there saying. Okay, let's see. We don't have any gays. If there are any, take them to Canada. Oh, shit.

Praise be to God. Take them far away from us to purify our blood. If there are any here, take them. So this is on HBO Real Sports. They're talking to that guy from Chechnya about gays. Interesting that it's on Real Sports. Well, that guy's involved in a lot of sports in Chechnya. And he sponsors a lot of MMA fighters. They made it up.

They are devils. They are for sale. They are subhuman. Yeah, man. This is crazy. God damn them for slandering us. Wow. They will have to answer to the almighty for this.

Wow. It's crazy. That guy, he hosts a lot of big time MMA fighters. He sponsors them and gives them a lot of money and then flies them to Chechnya. I won't be going there anytime soon don't think you should a documentary they made called welcome to chechnya that came out last year that says it's about a group of activists taking uh on this it's on hbo also and that's uh it's crazy now it's is it out came out the end of last year about a year ago yeah the world is not you know it's not a perfect place and as good as we have it here it could be

a lot better yeah but we have to understand that this is uh you know we're living in 2021 and we assume the whole world is like what. As free as we are. To be fair, it still happens to me, right? Walking down the street holding my hand with my husband, people will scream faggot at us out the car window. It happened at the Arnold in Columbus, Ohio. It's happened in Massachusetts. I'm also not afraid to hold my husband's hand in public because of the fact those people aren't going to stop and actually confront me. One of my favorite things you said when some guy was saying something, you go, I'm stronger than you and I suck dick.

Yeah. I mean, it's true. It's funny, though. It's very funny. It's a sad thing when people care what other people are doing. If it's not affecting you. I don't understand that. I think it's a horrendous weakness.

Like to care about what some. And I think it probably needs to be labeled that way to let them understand. Like if you care about two people that clearly want to do something that you don't like. Whatever the fuck it is. whether it's ballroom dancing or whether it's whatever it is, if they're gay, if they're trans, whatever it is, whatever it is, why do you care? No effect on you. Zero effect on you. And one of the, it's like, why put that much energy into something that you have no control over? But it's also, if you have lived long long enough you must have a friend that's gay and once

you have a friend that's gay and you talk to them and you you realize like oh this is just how you are you're born gay this is not a choice no you just you're gay and I you know I got lucky that when I was a little kid when I was seven years old we lived in San Francisco so from seven to eleven I lived in San Francisco during like the hippie era the Vietnam War and my next door neighbors uh were this this gay couple that my aunt would get naked they would smoke pot and play bongos with the next door neighbors last time and that sounds like the coolest fucking afternoon in the world it was interesting so that was how I grew up. And it wasn't until I was 11 that I realized people don't like gay people.

I moved to Florida. And when we moved to Florida, my friend Candy, his dad was this Cuban guy. And his name is Candido. They call him Candy. And he threw the newspaper on the table. He's fucking mad. And he was like, I'm like, what's wrong?

And he was pissed that gay people were wanting to marry each other. Like that was his thing. I remember being 11 going, well, fuck, imagine this is a grown man. Like I'm an 11 year old kid. I'm a little kid. And I'm like, this is so crazy. Like, why do you care? That's wild. It's wild. But people get taught that. And I think they get taught that Somehow or another the tolerance of that like not just not being gay But being tolerant of people who are gay makes you weak or make society weak or like that fucking guy Yeah, you know that kind of shit like that. It's somehow or another manliness and Gayness are mutually exclusive. Yeah, which is crazy to me.

Makes no sense. You know, like, I mean, I said before, like, I compete in, like, one of the most hyper-masculine sports in the world. Arguably the most. And I'm gay as fuck. You know, like, come on. It's arguably the most, you're right,

like, the strongest man on the planet. There's some fighting. Yeah, those are the two. It's like you're either beating the shit out of somebody or you're picking up a rock or just some crazy Neanderthal shit. There's very few openly gay fighters, very few. Emile Griffith was a famous, I believe he was a welterweight champion. And he had a fight against I think it was

Benny Perrette see if you can look this up but Perrette was taunting him during the training and the weigh ins and the press conferences about him being gay and he killed him in the ring he beat him to death I love that like actually or

oh shit I don't love that actually beat him to death i love that like actually or actually oh shit i don't love that i mean actually beat him to death yeah and i think if i remember correctly it really affected him and he never really fought that that happens a lot to fighters like when they kill somebody they're never really the same again yeah i mean that's was it benny perrette and emil griffith yeah so um Emile Griffith, yeah. So 29 unanswered punches. Yeah, see if you can find video of it. It was a ferocious beating. See, Emile Griffith was a serious boxer, I mean, world champion boxer. But this guy had taunted him about being gay.

And he fought fucking ferociously but that's a rare case right and I don't even know if he was openly gay you know it was just known that he was gay but there's oh yeah this is this is the end that's yeah and this is just fucking punt now and to be fair the the ref should have stepped in at some well this is, this is the 50s, bro. Oh, true. Look at this. The ref eventually did, but look. He died. Wow. That's a wrap.

Yeah. That's a rough one. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it's... Damn. But there's not a lot of openly gay fighters, and I wonder how many are gay.

They just have to hide it because of the macho sort of thing about, you know, fighting culture. Yeah. I mean, that's we look at any pro sport, right? Like there's a lot of guys in the NFL that come out after they've retired. I mean, you know, this is the first year in 2021 that we actually have an openly gay NFL player that's actively playing. openly gay NFL player that's actively playing. Do you think that the, like in your lifetime, have you seen the attitudes about gay people? Have you seen it become more accepting and more relaxed? Yeah, I think it's more accepting, more relaxed, but I also think the other side also feels that they have a louder voice now, right? Because like as the LGBTQ plus community, as we are more accepted and it's,

you know, becoming quote unquote normalized, um, all the other side of the spectrum feel that like, oh, well, like if they're being accepted everywhere, like I need to be louder about my stance and make my stance known, you know? Um, so I think like, there's this like weird dichotomy between the two where it's like, yes, as you know, the rights are becoming more equal. And, you know, LGBTQ marriage is legal, you know, statewide or nationwide and all that stuff. I think like the people that hate on it so much also feel that they have a louder voice because of that as well. And is most of that hate you think religious based? Yeah.

Most of it, right? I would say that's 90 percent of the hate that I got online from real people because it gives them license. Right. Like they think that they're getting the word from God. And that's you know, that's the thing that I never understood. Right. Because like religious freedom, I'm all for like follow whatever religion you want. Like I don't care. But it's like religion is supposed to be when you're following it. Hey, I can't do that. It's not because I'm following this religion. You can't do that.

Yeah. You know, your religion has no bearing on me and how I live my life. Right. And that's the thing that I also find. It's so funny. Right. Like they keep everybody keeps saying like, oh, the LGBTQ community is pushing the gay agenda.

They're turning kids gay and stuff like I'm like, listen, I've never gone door to door and knock on somebody's like, hey, have you sucked a dick lately? You really should try. It's fantastic. Right? Like, and then you have religions literally pandering to people to peep for people to go into religion.

Like that is part of their job in the religion. Has there ever been a study done on kids being openly gay? Like, and whether or not has shifted over time? Like, is there like, I don't know. I mean, how would you ever do this? Right over time like is there like i don't know i mean how would you ever do this right like is there a percentage a standardized percentage of people that just

happen to be gay like what is the standard like what do you think how many people are gay is it one out of ten is it one out of a hundred what is it i mean i would say it's probably in the 15 to 20 range 15 to 20 out of 100? Every one out of 15 to 20. Oh, one out of 15 to 20? Really? I'm just ballparking there. I don't really know percentages of LGBTQ people. I know more percentages of like,

you know, the percentages of teens that experience bullying in high school. Right. For being openly gay. And how much, you know, the percentage of teens that like attempt suicide because they're being bullied because they're gay versus their heterosexual peers and stuff like that. That's where a lot of my knowledge lands, not as opposed to.

And is it extraordinarily high? Yeah, it's like 49 percent of teens have like contemplated suicide because of bullying because of homosexuality. Yeah. Wow. Right. because of bullying because of homosexuality yeah Wow right and then you know that percentage drops drastically just by having one accepting adult in their life oh wow really one one person that accepts an LGBTQ plus teen can dramatically decrease the chance of suicide so when they say that like people are pushing the gay agenda, if there was like statistics that show there's no change at all in the percentage of people that are gay,

it's just, it would be interesting, right? So you could point to it. I think people think there are more gay people now only because more people are more comfortable with coming out, right? Like you hear stories about, like, I just saw a story about the other day like a man came out when he was 73 years old oh because he never felt comfortable to do so yeah you know imagine what kind of life that is and like i am so happy that he did finally come out but like what kind of life is that living i lived it for 22 years and i was fucking miserable there's an animated commercial for doritos where what was that fucking movie where the guy where was it Coco

the Day of the Dead movie remember that movie you ever see Coco it's really good it's a great movie it's an animated Day of the Dead movie but in this one in this commercial for Doritos Grandpa is dead and he comes back to life.

Like, I don't know, he's a ghost or something, but he comes back and he introduces his partner. I love that. And he's holding hands with another grandpa, and some people are freaking out. They don't know what to do, but the grandma was happy because she said, I thought you were going to be alone forever. I just got chills. That's wild. Let's play it.

It's interesting to see them stick their neck out and make something like this. Here it is. Because people were mad at it. The pages that I saw it, people were mad at it. The same kind of people that were mad at Little Nas X. See? So it's the Coco animation. This is Coco, right?

These people? I think so, yes. So they go to the grave, and they're putting things. What is it, like tortilla chips? It says, dear brother, I miss you. Okay, so it's the brother. And so look, he comes back to life. And they're eating Doritos at his grave.

It says, hello family, how are you? And it says, Alberto. He takes his hat off and then there's a guy with him. And it's, who is he? This is Mario, my partner. And they're holding hands. And she says, what a miracle. I thought he would be alone forever.

Oh, that's amazing. Aww. I love that. So there you go. That's Doritos. I love that. I'm going to get Doritos today. Yeah.

I mean, it's a cute little, it's never too late to be your true self. And that's, you know, I kind of came up with like a new mantra. It's like always proud, never scared. Right. Like it's just that simple. And when you're talking about like teens in general like the fact that like you know growing up you know i'm not that old i'm 29 right and even me growing up it's like i never saw openly gay athletes right so that automatically as a kid who's questioning their sexuality it makes it seem impossible right because

they're not around yeah and that's and that's why people are freaking out about Marvel having LGBTQ plus characters now and all this stuff. And it's like, there's no agenda trying to be pushed. They're just trying to show that gay people in our community exist. And having that one character that some little kid who's questioning who they are

can relate to can literally save them you know i mean it's it's absolutely unbelievable the kind of impact that has because growing up you see heterosexual couples all the time right like freaking watching rugrats right you know there's mom and dad yeah and you know there's you know people have an issue with the fact that the cartoons have like a dad and a dad or a mom and a mom that's like no like there's no issue it's just normalizing it making making it real. I think what people are concerned with is that these corporations are capitalizing on this sort of openness and like being woke and open-minded and acceptance of LBGTQ to

sell stuff. So the cynical- I get that. The cynical perspective is they're just piggybacking on this new change in our culture to sell things. And you know what? In my mind, that's fine. Let them think that.

Because if that keeps one kid from committing suicide, it's worth it. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, like, let them make a couple extra bucks. At least this kid's not dead. I do, like, the woke agenda in corporations is slippery. Because for the most part, they don't give a fuck about you

No, 100%. Yeah. I mean, that's why I think Pride Month is kind of a scam. Well, they must make money on it Oh, there's a shit ton of money, you know, but it's like Pride shouldn't just be during June Right, like it should be a year-long thing that we celebrate. Like Black History Month should really be a month. You know, it's like, God, I can't even imagine the money that corporations make on rainbows in June. Oh, my God. It's got to be disgusting. Congratulations to you guys for taking the rainbow.

Hey, that's what we're here for. You own it now. Yeah, oh, fuck yeah. The leprechauns can go fuck themselves. They have no claim to the rainbow now. It used to be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, right?'s the gays like do you think that more gay people buy lucky charms than any other cereal it's interesting oh there's a we've talked a lot about studies we could perform joe and this is another one that we could jump into now i would like to find out like whether or not

there is like a standard number of people like if you could if people were completely free and there was no No Hesitation coming out as gay it was a completely Accepted thing in our culture. I wonder what the numbers would be I think it's pretty substantial I bet it would be a lot higher because I know a lot of guys who are suspect Yeah married with kids and you just wonder. Doesn't mean anything. Yeah. Yeah, I know. There's a lot of that, right?

Talked about it last time, man. I was in a relationship with a girl for a year and a half before I realized that that sucked. Yeah. I had a neighbor when I lived in California and they were in their 60s. One guy was gay his whole life. He came out when he was young, but the other guy, whole family, the whole deal, married, children, miserable, and then met this guy and realized, like, I can't do this anymore. And that breaks my heart, dude.

Yeah. Like, that's terrible, right? It's horrible. I'm fortunate that I came to the realization when I was 22, which is still, like, kind of late. But you had the courage to just step up and accept it and not hide it exactly and that's the problem is there's so many guys hiding it and like when when i was a kid in boston uh you would always hear about guys meeting in rest stops yeah and people thought it was funny you know that like you would go to rest stops and guys try to hook up in rest stops and i was like yeah but

imagine being one of those guys imagine like this is where you have to go you gotta go to a rest stop. Yeah, and and somehow or another Hope that everybody got the memo because this is before the internet Yeah, right, so I don't even know how everybody found out that either gay folks would meet at the rest stop But it was like a known thing Stop at the Pike in Brockton, you know like like, like why? I mean, how many times did they, you know, it was a trial and error thing. Yeah. Do you remember that senator? It turned out to be like he was an anti gay senator too. down on Grindr paying for guys. Like, come on, man. I know.

It's like such a self-loathing thing. It is. And it's just like, I don't know, like maybe, you know, I had such a positive experience coming out where I'm like, you know, it made me realize like, oh shit, no, like this is what it means to be happy. This is what it means to not wake up every day and pretend to be somebody you're not. You know, because like that's exhausting. You know, like walking around every day, like thinking about how to talk, how to walk, how to interact with your friends even, right?

Like just a simple conversation. They're like, oh, like that chick's hot. And you're like, yeah. And you're like, no, you are. Like, you know? Yeah. I had this one friend of mine that was gay and was in the closet forever.

And then he eventually came out, but I don't talk to him anymore. I haven't seen him in like 15 years. And I found out he came out afterwards. But back when I knew him, he would talk about girls and it would be like, if I taught you how to say something in French, but you didn't know French. Like if I taught you how to say the words, you know, je ne sais quoi, but you didn't really know what you were saying. I had no idea. That's what it was like.

Yeah. So he was talking about making out with this girl, and I was like, come again? I'm like, what happened? I'm just getting flashbacks of a 40-year-old virgin and Steve Carell being like, yeah, they felt like bags of sand when he's talking about a girl's tits. I never saw that movie. Oh, it's pretty funny. I've heard it's really funny.

That's one of those movies that just slipped me by and I never caught up. But this guy was this handsome fella who was like a model. He was like six foot three, really good looking guy, real fit, he was a boxer. And he would talk about girls. And he had this girlfriend and the girl always looked confused

because he was too yeah so the girl was like you know she had this look in her face like how come he doesn't fuck me you know like one of them looks he doesn't want to yeah and he would talk about girls and it would be like what wait a minute huh yeah and eventually it came out but yeah you know it's like it just it is it really like it's it it's so sad to hear like these stories of these guys that just stay closeted for so long just because they think that's what they have to do well being a guy like you who is uh like a well-recognized respected person in this manly environment of strong man it's got to help like there's got to be a lot of young guys who find you and find comfort in the fact first of all you have not just the courage to come out but to

be like super open and positive about it and proud of it and and you don't give a fuck you know and so it seems like you can like someone could see you and go i think i could do that too yeah you know it's it's really cool because again like i mean you see my me on instagram right like i'm just like yeah fuck this this is who i am yeah you're just yourself yeah and um you know to to do that and show everybody that you know your sexuality has absolutely no bearing on anything that you do or who you are is really cool because i do i i do say like i i've gotten messages from like kids that have contemplated suicide you know and one kid literally it's it gets me every time man it's the first one i ever got was a 16 year old who said he was he had

literally contemplated suicide for weeks and was almost to the point of going through with it and then he found my Instagram page. Wow. You know, like, that's just like, it's insane to me. That's amazing. Because it's just like, just by me being me online, it made this kid realize that his life was worth something. You know, and I've gotten a handful of those messages. And I say it time and time again, like, those messages that I've gotten from kids like that

outweigh every single fucking negative comment or message i've ever gotten in my life those don't matter at that point yeah and that's why like i'm such a big proponent of like you know like just today i put on my on my instagram story that there was um uh an openly gay soccer player in australia that just came out and now he's officially it's the first openly gay professional soccer player, like at the top tier level. And like, I always say like that stuff so important because like reputation representation really does matter, you know, for, for kids, you know, shit, my husband was a soccer player. Right. And up until this year there, there wasn't an openly gay one at the top level. Um, so, you know, for see to kids, somebody for, for kids to see somebody that looks like

them, you know, achieving things that up until that point, they seemed more impossible really does. It matters more than anybody else can really imagine. We were talking about openly gay people in the world of fighting. And I should clarify, I only mean men. There are quite a few openly gay women, including UFC dual champion. She's a champion in Amanda Nunes, the greatest fighter I only mean men there are quite a few openly gay women including yeah, UFC Dual champion she's a champion in Amanda Nunez the greatest fighter of all time the greatest female fighter of all time Yes, openly gay as is her wife is also a fighter There's quite a few different like

Top-level UFC female fighters that are gay and And that's just sports in general, right? Like look at Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird. You know, I think, but here's- They don't get as much grief. Because I think there's a correlation between athleticism and masculinity. And I think with people, they automatically assume, and it's an incorrect assumption,

that lesbian women are more masculine. So therefore it's okay for them to be in sports where they associate gay men to be feminine. Therefore they shouldn't be athletic. Right. So I think there's that connection that happens. Right.

So when a guy is in the NFL and comes out as gay or a guy like you as a strong man comes out as gay, then people got to go, Oh, these assumptions, they don't hold up. Exactly. Right.

And that's, that's a big thing is like, you know, like I use this, the hashtag on social media media it's like breaking the stereotype right like kind of reforming what people think gay is because they try to put everybody in this box where it's all of us wearing like you know booty shorts high heels and nails you don't ever you know i will say we were at a drag show one time and one of our friends came up to us and she's like hyping up my husband. She's like, you should do drag.

You'd be gorgeous. Oh, my God. You'd be so great. Without skipping a beat, looks at me, goes, you'd be a very awkward woman. I was like, fuck you. Like that hurts. Yeah. So, no, I don't do that.

I have I've been pseudo put up in drag once and it wasn't a cute look. Well, you don't have to be in drag to have booty shorts. That's true. You know, like cut off jeans. I mean, I am competing this weekend. Dude, if you compete in cut off jeans, I mean, that's like subtle. Is it? I mean, kind of.

You mean the rainbow leggings aren't? The rainbow leggings are less subtle than booty shorts, I think. Might be a new poll I have to put up on my Instagram tonight. Rainbow leggings, though, it's still like standard clothing. It's just different colors. If you wear like booty shorts, like cutoff shorts, there's something about cutoff shorts, right? I was going to say, that i feel like that's kind of a masculine thing because it's always associated with like lumberjacks and like

flannel cutoff shorts can be manly if they go about down to the knees okay then men can wear cutoff shorts mid-thigh and higher not so much as soon as you start creeping up above the knees the higher you get the gayer it is which which is really weird, right? It is. It is. It's weird. I mean, that means basketball in the 70s was gay as fuck. Gay as fuck. Yeah.

Like Larry Bird. Gay as fuck with them shorts. Totally. Those shorts, they used to have like, I mean, they basically had their nuts hanging out of those shorts, right? Their ass was eating them the entire game. Yeah, they went right up to the top. Yeah. Yeah.

If you had those with cut off jeans, that'd be a real issue. Might not be functional for a strongman, though. Yeah, look at those things. Yeah. Look at Kareem. I mean. That's a lot of leg. That's a lot of leg.

Yeah. Yeah, that's how they did it back then. See if you can find Larry Bird. There he is. Look at it. Yeah, a lot of leg. Literally just under the cheek. Mm-hmm.

You could not do that. People would be upset at you. Yeah. Like, what is wrong with your fucking shirt? Well, I just like how the NBA, like. Look at those guys. Jesus Christ. The NBA, like, over-exaggerated in the 90s, and their shorts were, like, down to mid-chin.

Yeah, why'd they do that? I don't know. That's weird. Like, they're making up for the short shorts in the 70s, so. You know what's weird that never caught on is kilts. People started wearing kilts for a while. Yeah. It was a thing.

Like, people thought they were badass with kilts. I've heard that's coming back. I might have just seen a post. Jamie is kilts. People started wearing kilts for a while. It was a thing. People thought they were badass with kilts. I've heard that's coming back. I might have just seen a post. Jamie has kilts. See, this is what's happening. They actually just call them skirts. So I have... Men that wear skirts.

Two of the guys that are competing here this weekend, they're from Scotland. They're brothers. The Stoltman brothers. That's different. They'll typically compete in kilts. I mean, they're literally from the Highlands in Scotland though Yeah, they have lineage. You're allowed to wear skirts

They're really bad ass one of them one of them just one world's strongest man this past year and the other one one Europe's strongest Man Wow, which is pretty cool. That is pretty cool. Yeah, it's it's funny, right? Like shorts are okay if the legs are in like a tube Right, but the legs are not in the tube. I'm not if the legs are not in a tube, not okay. But if you're from Scotland, we're cool with it. Do you have bagpipes? Okay, you can wear a skirt. You know, like these fucking weird rules.

It's insane. The weird stuff to me, the anti-gay stuff is the religious stuff. Because like what was the root of that? Like what was the root of homophobia in religion? Like why does it exist well i mean people always quote that one quote that it's like men cannot lay with man as he lies with woman or whatever the fuck it is yeah but i guess according to that lesbians are fine yeah exactly right like it doesn't say anything about women laying with women right so also it's only laying down like

what if he stands up and lets a guy suck his dick I mean, that's not gay actually found a loophole. It's not gay. Yeah, two chains Oh Two chains skirt looks good There you go. Yeah, maybe he'll bring it back I mean, I will say I do love like what Billy Porter does on the on the red carpets now diesel Diesel's I got a skirt. Oh, yeah. Okay. That was back in the day 03 03. Yeah, there's also in the day. 03. 03? Yeah.

He was also in Scotland, so. Oh, was he? I guess, yeah, I didn't know. Yeah, but that is like a skirt. That's not a kilt. That's leather. Yeah, it's like. Yeah. I mean, unless that's a butcher's apron.

See, like, let men wear skirts movement. The let men wear skirts movement. I mean, Harry Styles has been doing it lately. He wears the whole dress, right? He does, yeah. Same with Billy Porter, you know, just like has been doing it lately. He wears a whole dress. He does. Yeah. Same with Billy Porter, you know, just like showing up on the red carpet in these fabulous gowns.

Yeah. It's weird that we have clothes that are specifically like women. Women can wear so much more. There's so many more options, right? I mean, hey, wouldn't it be great to be able to wear a kilt and feel a breeze? Yes. Or a skirt? Or no. Because if there's like a dog attacking you true that would bother me there's a lot about you more because you only have one nut yeah i don't want to lose that one yeah do a dog no you know you want to be like tucked up and covered in but here's the thing like a woman

could wear a shirt like yours with no sleeves and go to a really nice restaurant. Yeah. But if a man went to a really nice restaurant with a tank top on, they'd kick him right out. I used to work at a prep school, and the faculty had to abide by a dress code during the school day. Men had to wear shirt and tie. Women had to wear professional dress. That's all it said right so like i couldn't show up to work in a polo and dress pants or khakis but a female teacher could full sleeves right she can have a full like no sleeves yeah arms out totally fine yeah but like i have to

wear a full button-down dress shirt and a tie it's strange yeah it's like it doesn't make any sense it's like it would be one thing if everyone had to wear a suit. Yeah. The women had to dress like Hillary Clinton. Totally. And the men had to wear suits. Makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense.

But the fact that women- Can throw an oversized sweater on with a belt and be good. That's fucking weird, man. Yeah. It is weird. I'm jealous about it. I'm not even mad. I wish I had that kind of freedom.

We should all have that kind of freedom. Hell yeah. But dress codes are very strange. They are. And a lot of times they're racist. Like when they say you can't wear track suits. Okay, who's wearing track suits? Yeah.

What's going on there? Yeah. And by the way, why do you care? Do rags. That's a thing. rags oh yeah like people can't wear like a do-rag inside but can you wear a hat inside the places where you can't wear a do-rag i don't know i just saw the do-rag thing got pissed off about it like one place wouldn't allow white t-shirts but you wear a black one yeah it's more dressy. Classy. It doesn't make sense. No. But codes of what clothes to wear are odd.

Your image is the image of the actual restaurant itself. Okay? If you have an image, it should be your curtains and your silverware. It should not be- Table settings, yeah. What the people are wearing. No. They're interchangeable.

They come, they go. It's like, isn't that kind of cool that you have this variety of life? Like, look, there's the guys in the suits over there and those guys over there are dressed like basketball players and those guys over there

look like they might be rock stars. That's great. Who gives a shit? I was like, I once went for a job and they told me that I was going to have to shave my mohawk because it was unprofessional.

What was the job? It was an athletic trainer at a prep school. And I was like, your Mohawk would be unprofessional. And I asked them, I was like, point blank. I was like,

so what bearing does my Mohawk have on my ability to do the job? They couldn't give me an answer. They were just more afraid of the image of me having a Mohawk when they have, you know, multimillion dollar families that are donating to their school and thought that that might look bad for them. I didn't shave my mohawk. Good for you.

But again, who gives a fuck? Yeah. Why? Why do you give a fuck? Listen, I'm going to tape the ankle exactly how I tape the ankle, regardless if I have a mohawk on my head. It's just, I mean, it's weird because you can shave your whole head, right? Yeah.

So that's okay What if you decide to shave your head to look like a guy who was bald? Well, you grew hair on the side and then shave the top that's okay Okay, but if you shave the sides and left hair on the top, that's not okay It's okay, but you have to have a certain amount of it. Yeah. Yeah You can't have just a two-inch strip across the top of my head is not okay amount of it yeah yeah you can't have just a two inch strip across the top of my head is not okay it's weird if you were looking at us from afar if you're trying to examine human beings with no context and trying to like examine our culture without any real references you're like what are

they doing well i mean you've said this before like aliens would think we're weird as fuck oh yeah yeah there's no shot no they'd be like what the fuck is up with these people the arbitrary rules the things that like uh the thing that drives me the most crazy is women's shoes i just it's so bizarre watching women hobble around and these strange things that and uh chuck palahniuk was here yesterday and he was explaining that it's like uh when women having sex, like their toes point in the way that they are. Like, I don't know if this is true or not. What the hell? And the way they are with these high heels, like the idea of like your toes being down and your heels being up.

And this like, you know, sort of represents coitus or, you know, recreates coitus. That's wild. But I don't think that's true. I would never even connect the two. I think it just makes your butt look better. I think, yeah, your calves and your ass look great. Yeah, I think that's what it is. I think girls figure that out.

And it also accentuates the length of the legs. Yeah. But people always have these weird theories as to why things became standard. Because if you go back in time, it was illegal for women to show any leg at all. And back in the Victorian era, they used to cover the legs on pianos because they thought that people would get aroused by piano legs. They would literally cover them with a dress.

That's crazy. They would make cloth to cover the legs. I mean, I'm thinking like what no Victorians didn't cover up table legs because they were too sexy Oh god damn head admittedly adorable myth I think like with the heels thing my thought process from Terrence McKenna Terrence you did me wrong my thought process with the heels thing was like it elevated women yeah right because like physically they're typically shorter than men so like in the workplace it brought them like

physically higher to like their level so they wouldn't be looked down upon I think they were done before the workplace though I think the high heel thing they have probably back before women worked yeah it was not true what uh why did they come to the legs oh sorry I was going back to the pianos that came from a I guess it could be a journal of someone that traveled in 1839 and was repeating a story of something oh that's where the rumor came from mm-hmm so what was the reason why they covered those legs does it say I'm trying I'm trying to skim real fast for

sure though back in those days women had to cover most of their bodies. Yeah. I mean, they would look at floor-length skirts. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And slowly but surely, the culture shifted. But that's what's weird, right? It is.

It's like human beings biologically are essentially the same as they were then. So what is it about people and what is it about our ideas of what's acceptable and not acceptable, where you have to cover things up or you don't cover things up or things shift and change. You know what's always freaked me out? Volleyball. Volleyball is the only sport where girls have to dress like a hoe. Well, and I love that this year at the Olympics, like the handball teams and the volleyball teams protested that.

Oh, the handball teams dressed like hoes too? I think it was. Yeah, yeah. I think they had to wear like i say with all due respect ladies um they had to wear like it was very short spandex shorts um and it was same with volleyball and these teams protested that and like we're literally being fined per day when they would compete not wearing the official dress code but all said you know you we're not, we don't need to be sexualized to play our sport. Well, here's the rub, though. When they compete in the Olympics against, like, the Egyptian team or any Muslim country, those countries, the women wear the hijab, fully covered.

Yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy. Because they're allowed to compete under this sort of religious exemption. So is it the Olympics that's doing this or is it the United States Olympic team that's telling them about what dress code? I don't know. I know it was another country that started the protest

in terms of the dress code for these sports. So it must be the Olympics. Yeah. But they have a religious exemption. Yeah. That is so weird to me. It is so strange. Religious exemptions are so weird.

It's like, what are you doing? Are there boundaries around the religious exemption? Could we just say, oh, no, it's religious. You have to give proof of the religion? That's a good question. And by the way, what if you start your own religion? Well, that's where I was kind of going with it. My religion requires me to wear lingerie everywhere.

Yeah. Garter belts. You have to wear lingerie everywhere. Yeah. Garter belts. You have to wear garter belts in the religion. Yep. That's a weird one, right? The straps. That is. But gay folks, you guys don't have lingerie.

No, it's like jock straps and shit like that. Yeah, there's no thing that indicates you're interested in sexy time. Like if a girl comes out of the bathroom, this is lingerie. Here's the thing. At the end of the day. Here's the thing. This is what lingerie. Yeah, you guys. At the end of the day, we're dudes. Exactly. Same physiological response as a straight dude versus a gay dude.

There's no need for playing games. No, no. It's like, all right, let's go. Yeah. That's just it at the end of the day. It's funny because that is what lingerie is, right? If a lady comes out of the bathroom and she's changed into some skimpy little outfit with frilly lace and everything, the guy's like, oh. Time to get it on.

It looks like someone's ready. With gay couples, it's like, oh, you're home? Cool. Oh, you're breathing. Let's do it. You know? Yeah, we don't have to. There's no dance about that. Yeah. But does there like romance and like the thrill of the chase that's involved?

That's the same because like women like romance. They like to be like romanced and they like you just slowly get into it. I think it depends on like the mood. Right. Like I think that's with any couple. Right. Like it's like I'm sure with with straight people, like sometimes they just want to get down and dirty and go after it. And other times there's like foreplay and there's more to it, you know, like in that romance. Same thing with generally when it's foreplay, it's the lady's idea, sir. I'm sure you've had sex with women before, but I'm gonna tell you as a guy who does it on a regular basis. It's been a few years. I'm sure you've had sex with women before, but I'm going to tell you as a guy who does it on a regular basis. It's been a few years. What does it say?

Oh, the leg thing? Okay, here it is. While it's true that during this era some people covered parts of their furniture, they did so in an effort to keep their valuables from being damaged. Okay. Not to hide the alleged sexuality of a dining table. Victorians liked embellishment. Cloth dye was the boldest, most adhesive it had ever been,

so it wasn't unusual to see all manner of decorated cloth draped on furniture. Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Also, they would do it then at turn, because I think they were making, see this part, it says a dig on the American.

Okay, pointing out the concept of covering furniture legs for modesty was actually a dig on the perceived stucked up prudishness of Americans. Interesting. I've always learned so much here. Me too. I've learned so much accidentally. I was having a conversation with someone the other day, and they brought up something. I said, well, actually, it's because of this and some weird obscure information that I had.

And she was like, how the fuck do you know that? And I'm like, I don't, I don't know. I just talked to so many people, but I forget things too. Like someone sent me a clip of a conversation that I had with Graham Hancock and I was, it was about the Amazon and what happened to the people in the Amazon. And as I was watching the clip, like I was like, Oh,

I completely forgot about this. I mean, that's probably gotta be one of the coolest parts of what you do for sure. You know, like, I mean, I, that's like when I,

you know, tell people that I come on and like, I talked to you, I was like, you know, it's, I mean, I think I mentioned it to you before too.

It's like, I got hate from the LGBTQ community from coming on this show last time, which I'm sure will happen again. Um, but it's just like the fact that you're willing to have me and then guys like ben shapiro on the same show and just have candid conversation is just so fucking cool well we all need that 100 and that you get hate for this is so ridiculous and you know and the idea that i'm somehow homophobic is fucking ridiculous yeah no there's always people looking to dismiss people today it's one of the weirdest parts about today is that people want to take a person and narrow them down into a binary thing a good

or a bad yeah you know a pro or a con with me or against me get rid of them have them killed or elevate them to Godhood There's no in-between. Yeah, it's so dumb. It's like human beings are messy weird creatures, you know, and we're You know, it's hard to put people in boxes and categorize them and you're a great example of that Yeah, you know the funniest thing was like somebody messaged me like Joe Rogan hates gay people. How could you be on a show? I was like, I literally hugged the dude three days ago. Pretty sure he doesn't fucking hate me. I don't even know where they get it from. A lot of it came during the Bernie Sanders campaign, but that was because they were just trying to keep Bernie from getting elected.

Yeah. They start taking clips of things out of context and trying to pretend that these are like real opinions. Well, no, and that's the thing I always tell people, right? Like, especially about you. It's like, yeah, you probably saw that three and a half minute clip that's going around Facebook. That's all good. But like, go actually watch the two and a half hour conversation that they had. Yeah.

Like, actually listen to what they talked about. It's just a weird time for people because there's so many opinions out there. Like, so many opinions out there. Like so many people have opinions, and it's so hard to try to get a real nuanced view of who a person is. You have to talk to them over and over and over again. One of the good things about having a podcast like this where I talk three hours at a time is that the people that listen know me. They get it. Because you can't hide from people when you're talking for three hours

day after day after day after day. They know you, warts and all. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they know you. It's insane. But, I mean, that's why I'm so grateful for being on here as well. Well, I'm grateful that you come on here. And I think we all need, like in all groups of whatever differences, whether it's people on the right and people on the left,

people that are religious, people that aren't, people that are gay, people that are straight, whatever it is, we all need to just talk more and come to the real understanding that life is just about people that are nice and people that aren't nice. And if you're a nice person, you don't care what other people do, and you just want them to be happy. And if you're not a nice person, you want't care what other people do and you just want them to be happy. And if you're not a nice person, you want to go around controlling people and making people live the

way you live or think the way you think on both ways. Absolutely. Whether it's, you know, people that think that you have to adhere to a certain way of communicating and talking about people and preferred pronouns and languages. And so much of what we're dealing with today is about people trying to control other people. Whether it's homophobes trying to control you, or whether it's the Russians trying to control our political discourse, or whether it's vaccine mandates, or the politicians are trying to control people,

or the pharmaceutical companies are trying to control people that generate more income. It's about control. And we're losing some of our humanity by by giving into that a lot of humanity right like my thing has always been like at the end of the day like it's easier to love than hate it's better to love than hate that's for sure the effort it takes to hate somebody is exhausting it is but some people feed off that shit. I know. I don't get that, man.

Yeah. Well, you're smart. That's why. Yeah. You're smart, and you also have experienced discrimination at a higher scale than most people, so you understand how stupid it is. It really is stupid. It's fucking stupid, and there's so much freedom in just accepting and loving people.

It feels better. Yeah. It feels better. The people that are... The real people it feels better those the people that are The real people not the Russian trolls that are leaving these mean comments. There's probably something either something About them where they're afraid because they might be gay or maybe they are gay or maybe they were raised in some weird repressive religious environment, you know, I mean that's the thing is like weird repressive religious environment you know i mean that's the thing is like the whole fear around gay people and like the lgbtq community blows my mind the fear about it and what yeah

like people are afraid that like you know we're trying to like take over or make people gay i mean you said it before like we're just born this way man like yeah that's all we want to you know i just want to be able to go home to my husband at the end of the day and not get shit for it yeah yeah it's pretty pretty simple yeah the fear right the fear part and the anger it's like i think a lot of it is just not being exposed to enough yeah i think it's ignorance right like they they feel that somehow my happy, loving relationship with my husband is going to affect their lives in some way negatively. Yeah. Which it doesn't make any literally impossible. Yeah. Unless he's trying to fuck you. Yeah. And most of the times I don't want to.

Has it if you felt the shift in your lifetime, Like you came out and you were what, 20? 22. 22? Yeah. So seven years ago, have you felt over that time acceptance sort of expand? Yeah, I think so. Like I think it's also, it also could just be like my position in the sport that I'm in. Like people just know who I am.

Right. Right. Like so people coming into the sport, they're like, oh yeah, there's Rob and his husband Joey. And there's no thought about am. Right. Right. Like so people coming into the sport, they're like, oh, yeah, there's Rob and his husband, Joey. And there's no thought about it. Right. Right. Like, I think it's just like it's taken seven years, but it's just become who I am. Like, right. And that's just the expectation people know of me. they get awkward around change. They don't know how to accept it. Right. So like when somebody does come out as gay, lesbian, bi, trans or whatever, they struggle to try to reset their mind frame. I mean, I did coming out as gay. Right. Like I lived a heteronormative life for 22 years of my life. Right. Like I up until I was 22, I thought I was going to be married to a woman, have kids, you know, just live this normal lifestyle and realize that's not me.

That's not what I want. That's not what's going to make me happy. And I'm fortunate that I was able to just come to terms with that really quickly and just be like, yep, fuck it. That's it. But even like the people in the sport and some people around me, like they struggled to change that narrative of my life. And at the end of the day, it's like, why does my life have that kind of my life and at the end of the day it's like why why

does my life have that kind of bearing on you yeah you know and that's that's what I think is the weird thing well it's also it's a sex thing which is weird it's cuz like if you live your whole life chances are you're never gonna see any of your friends fuck no right be kind of weird if you did right so what do you care and that's that's another thing right is I think like for some reason People automatically associate being gay with sex Right like if if you see a straight couple walking down the street, you don't think of them in the bedroom I do

I mean, I always that's all about that's all you man bedroom i do i mean i always that's all about that's all you man but it's like you know they see a picture of me and my husband and they're all they're all they're just like which one of you guys is on the top yeah they just automatically go to this perverted mindset of sex right off the bat and it's like nothing i talked about is about sex i'm talking about love like you know they're not mutually related so it's like come on yeah i'm pretty sure my neighbors the older folks they probably didn't fuck anymore they were like in the late 60s whole ed thing will creep up to you not really anymore no viagra is a hell of a drug yeah um so you have seen things shift the thing that drives me crazy about homophobia really is when

it's rooted in religion and do you have this ideology that they believe came down from up on high right yeah they think this is this must be followed to the letter and if that's the case and they they think that homosexuality whatever the religion is there's some some homosexualities that are more tolerant or some religions and ideologies that are more tolerant of homosexuality. Absolutely. Some that aren't at all. And the ones that aren't at all, it's spooky because a lot of those are ancient and they've held these traditions for a long time. Like, you know, when you hear about um like isis throwing

people off buildings oh like in islam and like middle eastern countries like literally beheading in like a public square yeah that's scary that's reality it's that's what scares me is like you could open up someone's eyes that maybe these ideas that they had about bigotry and homophobia are wrong, and they need to readdress it and re-understand. And that's possible. You can get people to open their eyes and go, yeah, I just thought it was their choice. I didn't know.

Now I know. I've reframed my perceptions of it. But when those perceptions are locked in to an ancient ideology that is supposedly the Word of God and I'm gonna change that shit is so difficult to change and it's it's such a sneaky way to make something like a legacy thought and like to keep it in there I think that the moment that people I kind of like give people an aha moment right is like I compete in competitions all over the world and for most people it's just not a thought of where you go to travel but what i tell them is like i literally have to google to

make sure i'm allowed in that country in the first place whoa right have you ever had to not go to one because i have chosen to go to one where homosexuality was illegal and joey wasn't able to come with me where was that botswana ohana. Oh, wow. Botswana 2017. Homosexuality is legal there now as of 2019, I believe, but in 2017. Yeah. 2017 it was not. And that was actually my first year at World's Strongest Man.

Wow. So typically the World's Strongest Man invite comes via email. It's like, congratulations, you've qualified. Mine came from a phone call from lawyers at IMG. Really? And they were like, hey Rob, so, you've qualified. Mine came from a phone call from lawyers at IMG. Really? And they were like, hey, Rob, so here's the situation. We want you to be one of the athletes at World's Strongest Man this year.

However, it is being held in Botswana. And as of right now, homosexuality is illegal. The way the law is written is you can only be persecuted if found performing, quote unquote, unnatural acts. Whoa. So they were like, we're going to leave it up to you. is you can only be persecuted if found performing quote unquote unnatural acts. So they were like, we're going to leave it up to you. If you don't want to come, we'll hold your spot for next year, but it's up to you. Uh, you know, so my husband and I went back and forth on like, what do we do? You know, this is a huge moment. This is the first time an openly gay man's going to be competing at world's strongest man So, how do we navigate this and ultimately we decided for me to go and he would stay home just for pure safety

Yeah, and like no lie. I think it was about two weeks before I flew out Sure as shit fine Like somebody sends me an article about two men that were thrown in jail for seven years For holding hands in public in Botswana in Botswana where I was going two weeks later you think they let him out now I don't know I mean I would hope so but you know like that's that's something that I have to think about hold it because I was an unnatural act according holding hands and what about shaking hands that's okay no that's not weird how weird yeah right how long do you make eye contact shake hands but you can't walk with them.

No, no. Can't move. Isn't that odd? Yeah. Isn't that, that is such a strange thing. Just think about that. Because everyone shakes hands. Yeah.

Everyone. You shake hands with people you don't even know. Yep. But if you hold onto that hand with someone you do know and you go for a walk. It's not okay. People will get really upset at you. Yeah. How fucking weird is that? Right? Because it's not like. People get really upset at you Yeah, how fucking weird is that right because it's not like kissing like no men

Don't kiss men on the lips when they see each other so if two guys see people kiss two guys kissing in public It's like whoa. I didn't I've never seen that before yeah, but everybody's seen guys shake hands Nothing weird about it, but holding on to that hand could be a real issue that makes it awkward So yeah, so it's like you know I've been invited to compete in some middle eastern countries Like I was in bahrain back in march Um, fortunately lgbtq laws are pretty relaxed But like that's the thing that I have to do every time I travel to these countries I literally have to see like okay, like what are the laws surrounding me being there? Here's a little kind of weird

Side thing. Do you remember when Bush was in office? He had like very close relationships with the Saudis. And one of the things the Saudis do is they do hold hands while they walk. Yeah. So there was photos of George Bush holding hands with this Saudi royal guy while they were walking. Look at this. Look at this. Yeah. He had to follow his rules. In Saudi, in Saudi Arabia, I am illegal there. Right.

Like, I can't exist. Are they kissing on the lips? What was that? Holding hands, a little kiss. Yeah. Yeah, you know, so it's just like, it's so funny. So, like, that's okay. But me being an openly gay man, I cannot exist in their space.

Well, you know, what's weird is, you know, we're talking about these Islamic countries. My friends that have served and have been deployed overseas say there's so much undercover homosexuality in these countries. And a lot of it with underage boys. Yep. That's like a thing that they were told that they had to look away from. underage boys. Yep. That's like a thing that they were told that they had to look away from.

Like when they, when they had these encounters with people who were either translators or informants or people that were working alongside with them, occasionally they would have scenarios where these guys were abusing young boys and they weren't allowed to say anything about it. They had to like, yeah. And they were, and they were told they told this is a part of their culture. Damn.

And so these guys all over there going, what? So here you have this culture that the ideology is openly homophobic. Yeah. Openly anti-gay. Yet you have all these guys that are having sex with women. Like I remember I was having this conversation with someone, and they were talking about how tolerant Iran is. And I was like, in what way? Like, Iran has some of the highest levels of trans people in the Muslim world.

I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. But do you know why? It's because being gay is illegal. Yeah. So the only way these guys can be with their partner is if one of them transitions. That's so fucked up. Which is crazy. So fucked up.

So this is the loophole that they're given. Like, yes, you are allowed to be with this person, but one of you motherfuckers has to decide who the girl is. That's crazy. I mean, it's countries like Dubai where it's like, yes, it is technically illegal to be gay there, but it's also not persecuted. Okay. So it's like weed in Austin. Yeah, exactly. You know, so it's like, I know, like, you know, we were going to be going there for a contest, but I ended up not being able to go.

And they were like, oh, like, you can't show affection in public. Like, you know, you can't, you know, hold hands. You can't kiss anything like that. But that's kind of standard across the board for straight or gay people. Right. In a country like that, right? Right. Um, yeah, there's a lot of that like in dubai you get caught like making out with a woman on the beach They can oh, yeah. Yeah, you can get in trouble Were you when you went to botswana? Were you allowed to wear your your tights the same or did you tone it down? I did oh look at your big smile

You fucking rebel. Yeah, it was it was like a little fuck you like a subtle fuck you. Yeah, you know, you know, I've kind of made it a point like that was that was my break into the highest level of this sport, which is why I kind of took advantage of going to World's Strongest Man. in Saudi or any of these other countries, I would absolutely turn it down and be like, no, man, like if you're going to hold a contest in a, in a country that openly, you know, kind of hates who I am as a person, then I'm not going to compete with you. Well, also now you're a known person. So you're, you're, you're holding a higher standard. Yeah, exactly. You know, back in 2017, before I'd ever competed, I didn't, you know, now pretty decent following online, you know back when 2017 before I'd ever competed I didn't you know now pretty decent following online You know should I get to hear sit here and talk to you and people Jen, you know kind of know who I am Yeah, so, you know, I would hope that my voice has a little bit of weight behind it Well, and plus in that world you're very successful. So in that world you're known even more

Yeah, so you kind of have a responsibility i get it absolutely yeah it's just wild that here we are in 2021 and you've got countries that like we saw the video clip earlier and in china i think they have a similar attitude don't they yeah i i forget the exact statistic but i think it's like anywhere between 15 and 17 countries worldwide it's still legal it's still legal to be murdered or killed because you're gay and do all these countries share a religion or are they varied most of them are like islamic um i know like in russia it's actually written like if if a random person just like beats a gay person to death on the street, they won't be charged with murder. In Russia? Yeah.

That's a thing. You do not want to give Russians a green light to beat anyone to death. No, dude. One of the guys I'm competing against this weekend is Russian. Oh, really? Yeah. He's a pretty cool dude, though.

Well, I got to imagine they're exposed to the internet now, right? So they're exposed to a broader range of human beings and and more discussions about things yeah and people get a better sense of that you know this is just part of life yeah i don't know if it's necessarily like accepted but it's more tolerated which is shitty to think that oh at least i'll be tolerated in this country It's going to be looked down upon in the future. Like when people do, whether it's 100 years from now or whatever it is, when there's none of that left, they're going to be looking back on it the same way we look at slavery, the same way we look at all sorts of horrific things that people have done throughout it. The same way we look at the way women were treated before they were even allowed to vote. We're going to look back on it and go, what the fuck were they thinking yeah it's crazy it is crazy you know i mean that's like with

the the slavery and like segregation thing like people tend to think that like that was so long ago it's going on right now in libya 50 years no here in the u.s even it was 40 50 years ago only like it's not well it's old arguable it's still going on right now if you consider these people that are incarcerated that shouldn't be and that are innocent. I mean, there's a lot of people in prison right now that are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses and they're essentially using them as batteries to generate money. Yep. batteries to generate money. Yep. You know, when you think about a private prison system, you know, when they put people into these jail cells and when you know that prison union, like workers, like the guards lobbyists,

what they do is prison guards, at least they were for a while, they were lobbying to make some drug laws to keep those drug laws because that would make sure that they would have more work what the hell yeah that's crazy yeah police unions did it prisons um you know they they lobbied to make sure that certain drug laws were were kept in place because that would guarantee revenue because as soon as you make things valuable, you can make money off of imprisoning people. I mean, you've seen-

Which is crazy. The statistics on imprisonment in America are so nuts. When you look at our prisons and our prison population in comparison to the rest of the world, I think only China has similar numbers to ours. Wow, that's wild. But you can find what that is. I think when you, I see, I know it was outrageous,

but I don't know what the numbers are. Like the comparison, the prison population in the United States versus the way people are imprisoned worldwide, like per capita. Yeah. I think we're off the charts. Well, I think there was like a meme and it was said, you know, like when dispensaries

look like Apple stores, it's time to release those people that are being incarcerated for weed. Yeah. Chuck D from Public Enemy had that on his Instagram today.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's like, come on, man. There's people in jail for selling weed and then you can go

to dispensaries in California. There's a place across the street from the Improv in Hollywood that looks like a fucking Apple store. Dude, I go to the ones in Massachusetts. They're bougie as hell.

This guy across the street from the Improv, they gave you a magnifying glass. Oh, yeah. To look at the weed. Like flashlights. You can inspect it. Look at the crystals. It's crazy.

Okay, so here it is. The prison population of the United States is number one. Bigger than China. And China has a billion people. Wow. So our prison population is, ready for this, 2,193,798. China, 1,548,498. China has more than, yeah, more than three times the amount of people here.

And we have over 600,000 more people incarcerated. Yeah, it's nuts. No, more than three times the amount of people here and we have over 600 000 more people incarcerated yeah it's nuts no more than that look i mean this is the the numbers are yeah 600 000 and look at but what it is per capita population per 100 this is where it's really nuts 118 per China, 737 for 100,000 in America. Wow. That's fucking crazy. The jail occupants, this is the thing, that China's not available. The occupancy level is 107% in America.

That means there's more people in those jail cells than are even supposed to be in there. Kenyan prisons have an occupancy level of 343,000, or excuse me, 343%. That's wild. Three times overpopulated. It is wild. But if you get down to like England, you know, I mean, they have 80,000 people in prison. That's nothing.

Yeah. Scotland, 6,000 people in prison. Northern Ireland, 1,000 people in prison. That's wild. That's insane. Yeah. And only 79 per 100,000 people in northern ireland a thousand people in prison that's wild that's insane yeah and only 79 per 100,000 2 million here in the u.s it's crazy and we're one of the places where look at that unsentenced prisoners look at that shit 21 percent oh women prisoners only 8 girls are keeping it together here in America. Yeah.

It's fucked. So if you think about that, in America, slavery is kind of, it's not legal to buy people and sell people, but it's certainly legal to keep them in a cage. And keep them in a cage for things that arguably should be legal like drugs. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look at like, you look at like when, when states decriminalize or countries decriminalize, you know, drugs, I think like Portugal was one, it was a country that decriminalized all drug charges and they saw just massive drops in crime, like in everything. Well, the really important thing is it stops organized crime and that's a giant problem in Mexico. In crime, like in everything. Well, the really important thing is it stops organized crime. And that's a giant problem in Mexico.

I mean, we are connected to Mexico, and Mexico's organized crime feeds off of our appetite. Yep. Which is so fucked because by making things illegal here, we don't stop people from using drugs. No. These are the same amount of drugs. But we do, unfortunately, set it up where they're going to get tainted drugs. That's why. Yeah. They're getting fentanyl-laced heroin and shit like that, people are overdosing so quickly. I mean, it's insane.

But in this country, it would be political suicide if you said we should legalize all drugs. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think Oregon did it, though. I think Oregon just decriminalized everything, right? Everything. Everything. Fuck yeah. Heroin, mushrooms, steroids, whatever you want to do.

They're like, go ahead. Love it. But meanwhile, it sucks up there. It does. It does. Everything. Fuck yeah. Heroin, mushrooms, steroids, whatever you want to do. They're like, go ahead. Love it. But meanwhile, it sucks up there. It does. It does. It sucks up there. I talked to a guy who said that, no, I didn't talk to a guy. I read this.

I read this. Who said he was talking about he got his car done. He had some body work done on his car. And he said, I got to tell you, these Antifa folks keep me in business. So he said he has been dealing with bullet holes and the bullet holes and cars are so common up there that's actually ramping up his business that's wild i will say like joey and i went to portland for a weekend and it was crazy walking around there just seeing the amount of homelessness but what's crazy is the

amount of people that choose to be homeless. Right. Right, like they're laying in their tents with iPhones. Dirty white people. That's what it is. Yeah. Dirty white people. Probably from rich families that want to be oppressed.

Yeah. That's the way they become oppressed. Living on my own. I'm one of the unhoused here in Portland, and I want to say. But like, motherfucker, you're laying with an iPhone 13 in your tent. It's just a weird thing that they have allowed so much fucking chaos up there

And yes people don't feel comfortable about their property and their home and whether or not they're safe walking on the street And it's insane. Yeah, it's crazy, but they're they're pretty open-minded when it comes to lbgt They are there. I felt very safe there Isn't it funny? It's like when no one can get it right there's not like one sweet spot but i don't have to say austin is a pretty good sweet spot it is a pretty good sweet spot pretty amazing place i mean to be fair not a huge fan of the whole state but austin yeah it's got it going on it's um well the whole state so much of it is like really rural and ranches and and so old school yeah but then you have

you know the governor that just signed in this anti-trans athlete bill just this past week but see this anti-trans athlete thing is where we'll probably disagree because i feel like the real issue is we don't have enough data to find out what is what's fair and what's not fair. I agree. Especially look at you. OK, if you decided to go into women's power, if there's a world's strongest woman and you just decided to identify as a woman and enter into that. Good fucking luck, ladies. No, I agree. but there's also but this bill specifically here in texas is for youth athletes right so youth athletes in this state

have to compete in the gender they're assigned at birth okay so let's take for instance there's a wrestler here in the state the girl that yeah has to take testosterone. Yeah, she takes testosterone, has to compete against women, against girls. That's bad. That is bad. It's bad for her. It's bad for the other athletes, or it's bad for him. It's bad for the other athletes that have to compete against him because, you know, essentially this biological female now has the hormone profile of a male.

But if you're talking about a 13 or 14 year old, you know, male to female athlete, that's when things get different. Is it though? Have they gone through puberty? Maybe, maybe not.

Are they taking estrogen blockers? Possibly. If they're in a transition, it might not even be legal for them to take estrogen blockers in this state. Like when is it? Some states it is legal. Some states it's not, right? Yeah, I mean, but if that guy can get testosterone,

the flip side should be legal. I mean, should. Who the fuck knows? My issue is if they change their mind. You know, there's been research on trans male to female that if you leave them alone and they don't transition a lot of them just become gay and are happy that they didn't do some sort of hormonal intervention yeah i mean i think there's i mean this is another thing but it's who knows i'll probably get hatred from

my community again saying this but you know i read i i was watching a video, read an article that there was a six year old boy in a family. Family had a daughter, a newborn. You know, obviously, the the six year old who was an only child was no longer getting the attention. So, you know, started identifying as female when they brought the child to therapy to kind of uncover this a little bit more. He felt that the only reason he was able to get attention from his parents was to be a girl because of uncover this a little bit more he felt that the only reason he was able to get attention from his parents was to be a girl because he now had a little sister it wasn't because he was actually trans that sounds like shitty parenting i think so too but like i think there's definitely instances but i think you know there's also a flip side that the

flip side that is true that there there are trans kids yeah you know that are that know from a young age that they are not male or female or that, you know, they're not the gender that they were given at birth. But the thing is, there's a difference between accepting them for that and who they are and them competing with what may be biological advantages. There was a situation that happened recently where there was a pro MMA fighter who was trans, openly trans, competed and beat a woman who's a biological female. It was apparently a good fight, and the trans woman was actually in trouble in the first round and then wound up winning in the second round. And then people came to me about it, and I go, I have no problem with that. Yeah. I have zero problem with that. You know because it was it was all divulged like they knew there was no confusion absolutely like the woman knew what she was doing just like i have

no problem with anybody doing anything risky like i don't know problem with skiing is more dangerous than that yeah like there's a lot of shit that people do that are dangerous i don't have any problem with it as long as there's no deception my issue with the fallon fox thing was that fallon fox didn't tell these women that she was a male for 30 plus years and it only transitioned for two years and said that it was a medical procedure that she didn't have to say that i say that's nonsense i mean i agree but once she did come out and once everybody knew then the women she yeah the women she competed against after that no problem at all i mean it's also but it's also a slippery slope right because like i feel like a person shouldn't have to come out just to be able to compete but they might have an advantage a physiological advantage of having testosterone

running through their body for 30 years, and then they get off of it. They're going to have significant advantages. There's advantages in reaction time. There's advantages in the size of the heart and the lungs. Bone density. Yeah, there's a lot of advantages. Bone density is a different one, though,

because in actual studies, they've shown that in certain African-american women that they have a similar bone density to some European males. Oh, this is obviously Dependent upon physical exert like we were talking about your bone density is probably much higher than most because of the amount of weight you lift But there's differences in terms of like what part of the world your ancestors are from true i think like the thing that rubs me like what what i hate to see is like you know take an athlete like laurel hubbard the weightlifter from new zealand that competed at the olympics yeah i get why i get where people could become upset with that right like they feel that she had taken an olympic spot from biological females yada, yada. At the end of the day, though, she as an athlete is just following the guidelines set forth by the IOC.

Right. Is the IOC perfect? Fuck no. But this is what's been laid out as acceptable for trans athletes to compete at this level. Right. So the hate is going in her way where maybe people should just take a look at what should we do in terms of regulations. Exactly. Do you think there'll be a time where there's enough trans people to have trans leagues?

Like, let's think about it this way. If we have, like in boxing in the Olympics, we never have males compete against females, right? Because we acknowledge that males have an advantage. We acknowledge that and then we separate them. Would it be possible to have males, that, and then we separate them. Would it be possible to have males, females, and trans people? Or is there too small of a population? I think one, it's a small population, but two, the general acceptance of trans people

would have to be a lot higher for trans people to be comfortable enough to come out in the first place. Well, it's a lot higher now than it's ever been before. Absolutely, it is. So wouldn't we think that along with other acceptance, like the acceptance of gay people, the acceptance of all sorts of other, you know, religious exemptions where you see like the Muslim people wearing the hijabs where they're playing volleyball, like that we'll be more tolerant to all sorts of different things in the future.

I think it also, that's like, it kind of singles them out in a way yeah but it does make it safe in terms of like biological females being able to compete on a level playing field I think like honestly the ant like I don't know if there's a right answer I think that's a good answer right like I think because I see both sides of the coin. Right? Because even biological females, there's a spectrum. 100%. Just like biological males.

Look at the runner from Africa. Right, but she's intersex. She's different. Correct. She actually has a Y chromosome. It's a different situation. Yeah. Yeah.

She's like, I think she has like double X, Y. Yeah. Right? So she does produce a certain level of testosterone. a certain correct about that. I believe so. But I guess like the issue is where it's like, okay, like this woman who is a who is a biological woman like does produce higher levels of testosterone. Yes, but that now she's being told she has to take a testosterone blocker to be able to compete to bring it to a certain level yeah whereas you look like Michael Phelps was literally praised because he's a physiological anomaly for not producing lactic acid at the same levels of other athletes yeah when they say that though you're talking about a guy who's been training at such a high level how do we not know this is an adaptive measure that his body has taken to deal with the fact that he has this like super high training load. And you've seen him train.

He's a fucking beast. Yeah, no, he's a beast. And like, I don't know, like again, like, you know, this is just plain devil's advocate. Like Michael Phelps achieved more in his career than I can ever imagine. So not a slight to him, but it's, you know, kind of looking at the, you know, kind of double standard that's being thrown at these athletes.

Yeah. It's like I said, I don't think there's a right answer. I think either way people are going to be pissed. I would like if one day, I mean, with genetic engineering, with what they're doing now with CRISPR and all these different weird methods of manipulating genes that now they're doing CRISPR 2.0, so it keeps getting better and better.

Yeah. I would envision that sometime within our lifetime, you're literally going to be able to become a woman. no ifs ands or buts like there's gonna be a way It's gonna be a way to not just have a surgical alteration and intervene with their bodies with hormones But instead you actually will be transitioning to a woman. I mean, I think that'd be fucking great I think like even trans people would want that I would hope Hey, like if you gave them the option like if you had like, you know the red pill to blue pill with the mobius or Morpheus if

One of them was a pill that made you not want to be trans anymore Made you happy being a biological male and one of them was a pill that turned you into a woman Being a biological male and one of them was a pill that turned you into a woman An actual woman. I think which one would you take? I think it would be a high percentage of the the trans pill It would be nice if you could try it out for a little while, you know, can I get a trial size? You know what I mean, but I think I think it boils down to like these, you know trans people at their core Feel that they are not in the right bodies a lot of them, you know trans people at their core feel that they are not in the right bodies a lot of them

you know it's hard to say all of them correct with anything correct yeah a lot of them feel but i feel like in that situation red pill versus blue pill majority would go towards just being a biological whatever sex they feel they are yeah i think so too i think so too and then i think there's probably some of them that like, and this is fine too, there's some of them that like identifying as a woman but keeping their penis and having sex with it.

Absolutely. And this is how they like to live. And that shouldn't be a problem either. Good for them. Yeah. When it comes to sports, that's just where things get slippery. It's such a gray area. It is. And even me being a professional athlete and a gay man, like, I think what's funny is, like, people automatically look to me as, like, oh, you know everything about this entire situation.

I'm like, fuck no, man. Like, I'm gay. I know about dudes and dudes. Yeah. That's about it. Well, yeah, it's a different thing. And it's a thing that we're trying to understand and It's it varies with with person to person and I think like we are seeing like great strides in it because more people are feeling

Comfortable coming out as trans so there is some actual data to grasp on to now Where we can start to see better trends and understand things a little bit better I thought it was funny though when Caitlyn Jenner came out against trans athletes and everybody started hating on her. She's such a bitch. Why is she a bitch? Because of that or something else? I think, honestly, I feel like she doesn't have any moral ground

and she just panders to whoever she thinks is going to listen to her. It's possible. It's not, I mean. You know, just being candid. Yeah. You know, I may seem like an asshole for saying that, but. Well, she's fairly old too now. Yeah.

Right. And like the world was a different place. If you, your mind formed back when there was like four TV channels and you were on the Wheaties box in the seventies and now you're dealing with the fucking chaos of today's choices and options and identities. I understand she has gone through some crazy shit to be where she's at. I just think she could be going about it a little more tactfully. Well, it's also a function of answering a question in a parking lot from TMZ.

Yeah, that's not great. Don't do that. Especially if you're like what would you ask me yeah i think they should be uh compete against girls i don't know it's you can't it's not a good way to answer a question like a especially a question like that which is a culturally significant question coming from someone who is genuinely one of the most famous trans people alive yeah if not the most the most right i would say so yeah the most famous trans person alive yeah i mean have other people like laverne cox who's known in the actor's world and stuff like that but which i don't know who that is i know she's caitlin generous gorgeous yeah laverne um laverne cox is i mean i guess because I'm gay right where she is, but I'm sure sure she's famous

But there's no way she's as famous as Caitlyn Jenner. I got a thing so when you are Stepping to the Queen like that's what it is. That's that's the the head honcho of the the the trans World and I think what I think a lot of people's famous person Yeah, I think a lot of people also have a lot of issue with her because of her experience has been so much different from the majority of trans people. Oh, right, right. Right? Huge exceptions. Women of the Year immediately.

Oh, absolutely. Cover of Vanity Fair. ESPN fluff piece. Yeah, they just handed to her on a silver platter where that is not the experience of the majority of trans people. The thing about it is, though, did it help trans people or did it not? Like, what do you think happened when that was? I think it became really divisive. It still is.

You know, I think there's a really big divide of people that are like, this is great, Caitlyn Jenner is in the forefront. You know, she is an out-and-proud trans woman. And then there's other people that are like, shut her the fuck up. Now, what's the general consensus about what's going on right now with Dave Chappelle? You know, I figured you were going to ask me.

I wasn't going to until we started talking about trans athletes and trans this. And here's my thing. And I may be more open minded and accepting of all this stuff. But in my experience, Dave's been making fun of everybody for forever. And including himself. Oh, he doesn't hold back, right? Yeah. I mean.

But did you see the special? I did. Did you think he was making fun of trans people, like, in a mean way? No. I think, like, overwhelmingly, like, the stuff that he says, like, I don't think is mean spirited. No. The thing I have an issue with is when he just says like, yeah,

trans people are just funny to me. Like, I don't think their experience is funny. I think it's hard. Right. Like I think, is that one of the quotes that he said? I see.

I don't know if that was in this one or a previous one, but he, you know, there was one point where he says, you know, like, you know, but at the end of the day, I just think it's fucking funny and I think like that's honestly out of everything he said that's the only thing I've ever had an issue with because I don't think somebody's struggle is ever

funny right um do I think you can make fun of it I'll tell you yeah here's a struggle that's funny one of them pray, here's a struggle that's funny. One of them pray the gay away preachers. Okay, that's funny as fuck. Come on, that's funny. Yeah, that's funny. That's really funny. Because 90% of them are still jerking off to gay porn right after they do that.

Exactly. 90? Isn't it 100? Yeah, you know, so like, to be honest, like, I really didn't have an issue with what he said. Right? I feel like a lot of people didn't actually watch a special. They just heard that it's transphobic and they heard it.

Jumped on it. The story at the end, I watched him work it out over a year. We've been touring together. Yeah. And the story is about a trans woman who he loved, who was a very dear friend to his, who he actually had open up for him at one of his shows and he talks about it. And she defended him and then she was dragged by the trans community she wound up committing suicide and it was devastating to him

that sucks yeah i mean yeah and that's the thing is like he talks about like how he has gay friends lesbian friends trans friends like he doesn't care he loves everybody he really does if you if you meet him he's one of the most loving and friendly people but here's met in my life. But here's the thing with Dave Chappelle. If you have a heartbeat, he's probably going to try to make fucking fun of you. Yeah. Regardless of who the fuck you are. Yeah. You know?

And I think that's just like, people lose sight of that, right? Like, for me, it's comedy. Yeah. Right? Like, everybody's free game. Yeah. And I think- That's my feeling.

If you just take out that one piece of him just saying, people are funny, I think to me it changes the context. That's really the only thing I've ever had issue with what he said. That is the problem with taking any little tiny snippet of comedy out of context. Because he'll say things and then balance them out. Like he'll say one thing that makes it look like he's making fun of one person and then making fun of himself later. Or he'll make fun of himself first and then he'll make fun of them later and it's like it's meant to be taken in in its entirety yeah because it's a it's a vision into his perspective here's the world through my eyes I think the thing is too is like the media obviously doesn't help right

because just a couple years ago here he is defending know, George Floyd and the George Floyd murder. We're talking about that. And Fox News is trying to cancel him for that. Now Fox News is praising him for this movement. Yeah. You know, so I think it's like it just makes it so divisive and it's just so easy because of what he does. Like it is very in your face and he doesn't hide that he doesn't hide behind anything and he stands up for everything that he says. very in your face and he doesn't hide back. He doesn't hide behind anything and he stands up for everything that he says. But I think it's just so easy, like you said, to take four minutes out of a two hour special and take that for the word that he said. Well, what's crazy about this special in particular that he's getting heat from is that they're not quoting any of it. No, there's no

one thing where they say he should not have said this they're just saying his hateful Transphobic special and I'm seeing these people that it was tagging on that that I know haven't listened to it or watched no And they're saying that it's funny like if you go on YouTube There's a little like a 25 or 30 minute video of Dave Chappelle's trans jokes He's got that many trans jokes. Yeah, it's it's a pretty long one What's the problem is like he keeps defending it right right? Like he's getting attacked. He makes a trans joke. He gets attacked then he defends it and makes more trans jokes Then he gets attacked. Yeah, then the last one is like 20 minutes of a story about a trans person Yes, he might not might want to retire that subject. Yeah, I mean it I think at this point it's low-hanging fruit

I mean, but it's still it feels like it's relevant to his life and his experience, unfortunately, because this is a thing he's dealing with is being attacked for his bits. And for him it's therapy, right? That's part of the reason why he does this. It's also whenever there's a thing that's in the news that becomes like a public subject, he has an obligation to discuss it. Yeah. Because he doesn't have a podcast he does

but he doesn't really do it that often yeah and it's it's a he did like a series of them for luminary but it's this is how he gets his opinions out for sure he gets it out through his comedy yeah and i mean i think like i said like at the end of the day like it is what it is i didn't take offense to it you know it's just that one piece that I just wish wasn't there. Well said. All right. Unfortunately, I got to wrap this up. I got to get the fuck out of here.

Yeah, we've been talking for a long time. It's always good to see you. Thank you, man. Good luck in your rehab. And I'm telling you, take into account my idea about the bear. I'm down for it. That'd be fun. Kill a bear, wear his skin, eat his meat, and wear that skin. Come out with your comeback.

I love it. Bear skin, full-length coat. Beautiful. All right, Rob, tell everybody your social media, where all your stuff is, where people can get a hold of you. Yeah, easy enough to find me on Instagram at worlds underscore strongest underscore gay. Because of you, last time I bought worldstrongestgay.com. That is the website, so you can find me there. beautiful um and you can also find me on my new business venture strongmancorporation.com um anybody feel free to contact me directly r kerney at strongman

corporation.com if you're interested in becoming a part of it i think it's awesome that you're running that thank you i really think it has massive potential too i'm super excited just needs the right the right push yeah. Thanks. Absolutely. All right. Bye everybody. Peace.